Bullseye for the Wrecking Ball
by AliLamba
Summary: LoVe, college AU / Veronica is not going to do it again; she has standards, and Logan wears flip flops to parties. I mean, come on.
1. Bullseye for the Wrecking Ball

**Bullseye for the Wrecking Ball  
By** AnonymousAliLamba  
 **Rated** E/NC-17 for lots of doing it and lots of swears  
 **Notes** I looove smutathons. I looooooove them. This is a repost from AO3, and the genius smut-a-thon organized there by very smart ladies.

* * *

"You said you weren't going to do it again."

Veronica at first doesn't hear Mac's warning, but it's because she's distracted.

"What?" she shouts above the music.

Mac holds her gaze for a moment, then rolls her eyes.

"Your funeral."

"I'm not going to do it," she says.

Mac doesn't respond, turns instead as she does some dancing in another direction. Veronica would frown at her back but she's still distracted, and she glances back over at the guys doing keg stands in the next room.

"If you're going to do it you might as well get it over with."

"I said I wasn't going to do it!"

Mac follows Veronica's gaze, makes a show of being unimpressed by what Veronica is staring at. It's dumb jock season at Hearst College, better known as Intro to Rush Week, and every Greek society on campus is celebrating their new pledges. Not that Mac or Veronica are there to pledge…whatever house they're at that night. This is just their ritual, forged long ago as a way to score free booze and blow off steam at the end of the week. The couches are comfy, the music is loud, and if your commitment is to each other and not to making new friends, well…there are worse, and more expensive ways to spend your Friday nights.

Veronica tears her gaze away and finds Mac still staring. "It's not like I need to get some, okay. I'm – we're having a good time tonight! Girlfriends!" She adds a little pom-pom move Liz Lemon would be proud of.

"Girlfriends!" a voice joins in, and both girls turn and shout little squeals of delight as Wallace finds them in the crowd. They share a dorky group hug.

"Where's Piz?" Veronica asks.

"Getting drinks."

Mac punches Wallace's arm. "You're late! And Veronica's already thinking of leaving me."

"I am not!"

Mac looks pointedly towards the keg standers, and Wallace follows her gaze. He shakes his head, grinning. "Veronica Mars. Control yourself."

"I'm not going to do it!"

"Sure you're not."

Wallace picks up Mac's hand and spins her into a little waltz-type move he learned when his mom made him do cotillion in high school. Mac lets herself be dipped because she was forced into the same class. "Has he seen you yet?"

Veronica frowns, biting on the inside of her cheek. "Guys, c'mon, I'm here for you. Give me a little more credit than that, mmk."

"That's a no."

"She hasn't lit her flares yet. Pulled out her banner."

"I did not! …bring my flares."

Her friends laugh at her expense, and Veronica ignores them and keeps dancing. They've been friends since forever – well, since freshman year orientation, which feels like forever ago. Fate just meant for them to be together, they decided, because not only were they the only three on the campus tour to find their peppy orienteer absurd, but Veronica and Mac have been roommates since day one, and their nextdoor neighbor had tolerated their Arrested Development and Lost marathons like a champ. The day Wallace and his roommate Piz brought over popcorn and asked what the hell happened to Bai Ling was the day that cemented their bond forever.

Mac and Wallace are pretty invested in their tango, so Veronica's attention again drifts to the next room. It's bad timing, as it's Logan's turn to be hoisted above the keg, and his shirt rides…all the way up. It makes her cheeks flush and stuff happen way below her navel, and she knows her friends are right. Damn it.

"Anyone want some beer?"

Her friends burst out laughing.

"So fucking predictable!" Mac shouts, bass thumping in the background, but there's no sting to her words. Veronica sticks her tongue out, flips them a middle finger, and is about to wander into the next room when Piz finds them, doing some complicated handiwork with four cups of beer that would make any Oktoberfest fraulein proud.

"Girlfriends!" They echo him like it's their mating call. It sort of is, if their version of mating involved going four spoons in on a Vermonster.

Veronica huffs out a short sigh and helps him with the drinks, looking over his shoulder.

Stupid Logan Echolls is holding his hands up for high fives after his triumphant stand on the keg, and he's receiving major kudos. Piz starts talking, but Veronica doesn't quite pay attention. She's mostly noticing that Logan's shirt hasn't fallen all the way into place, and two or three of his abs are still visible. She wets her lips.

"Has Logan seen her yet?" Piz is shouting at Wallace and Mac, who've separated enough to take their drinks and clink plastic in cheers.

Wallace is shaking his head. "No, don't think so. Otherwise we'd be down to a trio already."

Veronica rolls her eyes emphatically. "Guys, come on. Give a girl some credit. He's – I mean – he's doing keg stands! He's wearing flip flops! I have standards."

"Yeah," Mac grins, making eye contact with anyone but her. "You've had standards at least three times this semester already."

Wallace and Piz offer high fives.

Veronica docks her hand on her hip. "Guys. I came here tonight to have fun with you. Piz, weren't you going to tell me all about – that thing? That you were telling me a little about yesterday?"

"Oh yeah, that thing. That thing went bad. Ope, story's over."

"See ya."

"Guys!" It's a plaintive whine, and her friends grin deeply into their beers as they drink and ignore her pain. Piz is the first to speak.

"C'mon Veronica. It's the same old story every time. We stood a chance before he showed up, but – well, you're useless to us once his shirt comes off."

"And you know it's going to come off," Wallace adds.

There's a loud swell of cheering from the next room, and everyone turns to look.

Mac points a finger. "And there it goes."

"You really have to appreciate that some things don't change."

"It's sort of like its own tradition. Like Christmas."

Her three friends hold up their beers. "Merry Christmas Veronica."

She tries to be mad at them. Really, it's like they're kicking her out. But it's like – it's not like they don't have a point. Yes, they've had this weekly tradition since freshman year, but at some point during that first year Veronica was feeling randy and this one dumb frat boy wouldn't leave her alone. And while at first he'd been horrifically annoying (how someone survived the Epic Veronica Burndown she'll never know), but he was annoying and annoyingly _cute_. And then sometime around the third party they both happened to be at together she remembered his name. And by the seventh party Logan's persistence paid off and she let him talk to her for more than two minutes, and she was only like twenty-five percent bitch to him. And then the tenth time they ran into each other he almost brought some other blonde home, and that pissed her off more than it should've, and she insisted he take her home instead.

She wouldn't call it a tradition, but, it was a fairly amazing coincidence that whenever they ran into each other at a party…they managed to leave it together. It was also amazing that after two years at Hearst the tradition hadn't bucked.

Maybe she was an old-fashioned girl at heart.

"Nope I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it! See, look at me, not going there, dancing with you instead." She holds up her beer and shakes her hips a little to prove her point. "Dancing me. Not leaving my friends. Not the worst."

"Oh isn't this cute. She's actually trying."

"I give her four minutes."

"Guys!"

"Oh, we made her mad. Better make it two."

Wallace and Piz tickle each other's palms in this really annoying _aren't we cool and smart_ gesture. Veronica looks to Mac for support but gets a shrug. "I told you," she says. "It's your funeral."

Veronica frowns at the three of them. "And you call yourselves my friends," she accuses. When they don't even wilt, she takes a quick sip of her beer. "You know what? I don't need to take this abuse. And I'm out of beer. I think I need a refill."

She's not even close to having an empty cup and everyone knows it, confirming the knowledge with barks of laughter and _told you so_ 's. She shares an apologetic/please understand smile with Mac, the only person whose approval she really needs, but Mac shoos her off and starts grinding on Wallace.

Veronica releases a shaky breath as she turns away from them, heading toward the keg. She pours her beer into a potted plant as she goes, because she does want an excuse. She can't imagine – or really, she's not ready for – a situation where she could just go up and _talk_ to Logan Echolls. That would be way too official.

* * *

Logan is coordinating boilermakers with half a dozen other guys also inconsistently clothed in shirts. On the count of _three!_ they drop tiny glasses of whiskey into tall glasses of beer, and then they chug en masse. Beer slides down his throat and down his chest, forming little rivers through his sparse chest hair, toward his so very happy trail. It is distracting as _hell_ – and Veronica thinks she was probably always doomed.

Logan is the first to finish and he throws his fists up again as if he's actually accomplished something to rival the moon landing. High fives, _damn bro!_ s and a few fist bumps later and Veronica's within talking distance.

"Way to go bro," she imitates their deeper tone of voice, and a few people turn in her direction, including Logan. His gaze locks onto hers, all tractor beam in shades of amber and brown, and a slow smile creeps across his face.

She doesn't even really see how Dick rolls his eyes in an overly dramatic sort of way.

"Oh jesus not again. C'mon Veronica, is now really the time?"

"Hey give her a break," Mercer interjects. He's probably Logan's most creepy friend and that says something, more about how everything about Logan should turn her off but it doesn't.

"Yeah give me a break." She holds up her empty plastic cup. "I just needed a refill."

Logan's smile upgrades to a grin, and he flexes his biceps. She notices.

"A refill? Ronnie. C'mon. Last week you asked for the time. Before that it was a quarter for the payphone. You could at least try to be creative."

"Why, do you have a quarter for the payphone?"

"What – " Dick sputters, instinctually palming his pockets. "Nice try, Veronica Mars. They don't even _have_ payphones anymore."

Logan cocks an eyebrow. "He checked."

"Did not!"

"For like three weeks."

Veronica grins.

"So…about my refill?"

Dick makes some disparaging sounds through his teeth while Logan offers his hand for her cup. Veronica takes a step closer to give it to him, carefully avoiding skin contact. Mercer is already doing something else, making some conversation with some other people, and Dick is slowly giving up the fight. Logan uses way more muscles than is strictly necessary – or at least, he involves all of them in isolated bursts of attention-seeking flexion – to put beer into her cup. She takes it with a grateful sip, eyes sweeping over his skin in a quick gesture she knows he'll notice. His dark eyes reveal he did, notice that is, and he bites his lower lip while dropping the keg tap.

"You know what?" he says. "I gotta find a payphone."

"What!" Dick shouts, aghast and grumpy. "That's – come on. That's worse than the refill line! Logan!"

Logan and Veronica are already walking toward the front door. Veronica grins up at him and deposits her cup of beer on the first available surface.

"Think you forgot something in there," Veronica chides, when they step into the crisp autumn air and Logan slides his hands into his pockets. He grins lopsidedly.

"Did I?"

He's still not wearing his shirt.

Her own amused grin blossoms, and she fights with the laugh in her throat. "See if I take you to Red Lobster then."

"I had no idea this was so official. If you wanted to take me to dinner you only had to ask."

She snorts. "You're _so_ not worth lobster."

He flexes his pectoral muscles, and she rolls her eyes, throat still tight with amusement.

"I hear it's shrimp week."

"Maybe you're worth imitation crab. Maybe. On picture day."

"And yet you insist you have a shellfish allergy."

She runs into his shoulder on purpose. "It's a selective shellfish allergy."

He stops her then, accomplished by an arm around her shoulder and his other arm around her waist. Both twist around her body, fingers in her hair and in the gap made between her shirt and shorts when her shoulders hunch with – not quite surprise – but appreciative shock. His kiss is searing, wanting, hungry and hot, and she thinks she might give in on the grass lawn if it was even a little more private. It's been a long, shitty week, and she meant to have told her friends all about it over drinks and loud, crappy dance music. But then Logan was there, and the only thing she could think that would make her feel better was a few well-deserved orgasms.

"My place or yours, crab cake?"

She laughs into a warm exhale. "My roommate's out for a few hours. She went to this party with some friends; it should be a fun time."

"They must be some friends."

"Literally they are the best. You should meet them sometime."

He kisses her nose. "I dunno I'm hard to impress."

She kisses him again then, really just giving him the whole hog, mouth open and tongue involved and little mewing noises in the back of her throat.

"My place," she breathes against his parted lips, and he nods, like an idiot.

His whole sticky body is pressed against her front, and when he pulls back her shirt sticks to the beer still on his skin.

It's awful, really, how ridiculous he is and how he's so, incredibly wrong for her. She gets great grades and likes Mac's art films on occasion. Her iPod is full of Arcade Fire and Postal Service – not, she assumes, whatever Logan is probably into. Does Ja Rule still make music? She doesn't know. She does know that his pecs and his arms and his _dick_ really do it for her though, that there's no one else in her life right now that does it for her more, and that tonight she'd like to add one and one together to make two.

He takes her hand and leads her across campus, and they jog and giggle the whole way because it's so fucking obvious what they're about to do to everyone they pass and it's absolutely fucking _fabulous_ how little they care. It takes all of ten minutes but by the time they're on the front steps to her dorm she's breathless and that throbby artery between her thighs is _insane_ – because Logan's back is _gorgeous_ – and she wants to rake it with her fingernails and leave angry red marks all over it.

Logan is a great fuck because (apart from the obvious, the whole generous oral skills and actually paying attention to her needs kind of thing) he doesn't push it. He doesn't try to spend the night or get her number, and while they're climbing the stairs she wonders if it's odd, that he's never pushed his way onto her cell phone, that he's never called her just to chat. Is it weird that they hook up at parties but that he's not pulling for anything more?

These are the thoughts she's having, when Logan pulls her in front of her own dorm room door, pushes her hips into its solid wood, and kisses her. He's only slightly out of breath and he's meticulous and slow about the kiss at first, and then that slowness is playing on a very important nerve in her groin, lighting the match, blowing on the ember, so that by the time his tongue is tagging her lips she's really, really into it. And when he starts kissing her neck she starts jamming her hand into her purse for her key, not finding it fast enough for her god damn liking because in another few seconds she'd fuck him in the _hallway_ for crying out loud, but then her fingers jam into the hard metal bits and she's turning and shoving the key into the lock. Her eyelids flutter as she twists the key because Logan's found that spot – holy shit that spot on her neck – and it should be fucking illegal how good it feels when he kisses her there. She's ninety percent sure that her bra strap goes there, that the sash of her book bag goes there, that every once in awhile there's an itch around there that she has to scratch, but fucking hell – Logan's lips and it's like that spot on her neck never existed before. It's a sling shot boomerang hand grenade to her groin and…god damn.

She leans her hips back so her ass presses into his pelvis, just enough to hear him groan into her skin and feel his erection through his pants. _Yes, please._ The door opens and they both step inside, and the only reason-based part of her brain still left functioning grabs the keys out of the lock before Logan slams the door shut behind them.

Veronica is already dropping her bag to the ground and throwing her keys wherever, toeing off her shoes and ripping off her socks. Logan crosses the room in three easy strides, hands going to the side of her neck and the back of her head so he can kiss her some more, and it's all-fucking-consuming this kiss, and heat goes everywhere – into every toe and every hair follicle. Shit she would let herself combust right there if she didn't know it could be _even better_.

Veronica's hands go to his arms, then his chest, and she breaks the kiss with a soft laugh.

"God you're so sticky."

He echoes her breathless expression of humor. "Pretty sure your room doesn't have a private shower. And I sort of have an _If You Give a Mouse a Cookie_ relationship with women and showers."

"I knew we should've gone to your place. I have no cookies here."

"You're just going to have to lick me clean then."

It's a challenge, and a stupid one at that, and she raises a questioning eyebrow at him just because. He holds her gaze with a stupid smirk, and she gives in with a big stupid grin. Veronica leans forward. The top of her head barely goes to his collar bone anyway, so it's easy to place a soft kiss on his sternum, and all of a sudden it hits her that she's been thinking about licking this disgusting beer off him since she saw it so sloppily spilled there maybe twenty minutes before. She is so fucked.

Her tongue slides across his warm skin, up and down his sternum, across his pec to his small, pebbled nipple. She swirls her tongue around it and he hisses – she knows he's not a _huge_ nipple play guy in the receiving sense but he's clearly into it now – and she kisses it the way she loves to be kissed. Then because she's a hedonistic jerk she bites down – gently, well, because she's not a total jerk – and his mouth drops open on a loud exhale.

"That's enough," he warns. "You're just going to have to live with the rest of the mess."

She looks up at him through her lashes, breath hot on his chest through parted lips. "I think I can do that."

Then he pulls her shirt over her head.

He's not even shy about the way he dives for her breasts, leaning down to place his whole face against _her_ sternum, fingers fumbling a little at her spine to get the bra unclasped. And when it does come undone he rips it off, grabs her around her small waist and kisses his way to her nipple, groaning deep in the back of his throat as it hardens under his lips, and pulling her toward him isn't enough, so he pulls her up, off the ground, and her legs wrap around his hips as he kisses her breast deeply, tongue flicking across the tip and then lathing around her areola, and her thighs really squeeze his sides because _fuck_ it feels great. Again, that delicious throb between her hips flares, and she knows that it would take minutes to orgasm like this, but she doesn't because – there is more. From experience, she knows there is more, but fuck does it feel good just like this and she could let him do it forever.

Her head lolls back when muscle strength focuses elsewhere, and – how does he do it he must work out nine times a day – he holds her up with one arm around her back and palms her other breast, turning their bodies and making steps in her room that she barely comprehends because things happening on earth besides what Logan is doing to her nipple and what Logan is doing to her other breast just _barely_ exist at that moment, particularly when he uses his soft lips and some suction to gently pull on her nipple.

Then she can feel his abs quiver as he uses them, and he's bending her back onto her twin bed. She thinks it's a god damn shame and probably totally on purpose that college dorms only provide twin mattresses, but she's not going to complain about the price. Well, now. Right now she's not going to complain about the price. Not when it has springs and a generically soft surface and when Logan is still nearly bringing her to orgasm over and over and it's barely been ten minutes – not when the things she has to think about are holding out for the good one yet to come. Logan still has one hand gently massaging her breast, thumb and forefinger teasing her dry nipple when his mouth moves, and then he's pressing little stamps of his lips down her torso like he 100 percent approves of her skin.

His fingers find the snap of her shorts, and he twists it open slowly, tongue somewhere around her navel. His tongue does dip into her navel and she squirms beneath him, hips going back and forth because the warmth in her core is _pulsating_ now, and even she knows how drenched she is below the belt. Fingertips curl into the waist of her shorts and he's dragging the material down her hips, underwear leaving, along for the ride. When the shorts are at her ankles she realizes Logan is kneeling at the edge of her bed, and – _fuck yes_ – she knows what's coming next.

Merry fucking Christmas, Veronica.

She's ingloriously naked in front of him, beneath him, and there's a lamp near the door burning its electric light through the room. Logan's eyes are practically glowing, sort of like the way the moon reflects on dark lakes at night. He's very, fucking, into this, and he kisses all around the edges of her trim pubic hair like he's framing a picture. Veronica cards his hair impatiently, and then she bites her lip when he finally gets close, and then he finally does the gentlemanly thing of kissing her – there – mother fucking fuck right fucking there.

Veronica's lips pop open with a heavenly sigh and then a less heavenly moan, and she tries, she really tries, not to grab at Logan's head, making fists with her hands as Logan tongues her clit. It feels fucking amazing, and heat churns in her groin, roiling faster and with more and more heat the longer he goes on, the longer the flat of his tongue drags against her slowly, then alternates to a few quick flicks of the tip of his tongue, then goes back to that heavy, wonderful, _heaviness_ that has her weak in the knees and just also in general. Logan's observant in that annoyingly wonderful way that makes her want to lick beer off his chest hair, and he notices her hands, grabbing her wrists and pulling them to his head anyway – and – fuck him – just go right ahead and fuck him – because she orgasms almost immediately. One second his tongue is gliding over her clit again and again; the warm, wet muscle lapping at her so god damn intimately, and the next she's allowed to _hold his head between her thighs_ and that sort of power trip just shouldn't be given so willy nilly, because by holding his head against her clit and grinding onto his face, her orgasm is a not-so-minor explosion she was not prepared for until she is shouting expletives through clenched teeth.

Logan, as it has been said, is a fucking gentleman, and he rides with her through the aftershocks, his tongue slowing as it glides along her slit with little detours around her clitoris. He really is far too good at this, and she thinks that maybe if her friends _only knew_ , well then, a) she would be fucking insanely jealous and they would probably not be her friends, and b) they would totally understand. She pets his hair, curls the short strands around his ears, and then hooks her fingers around his jaw and tugs him upward.

They kiss again, and she can taste herself on his tongue, that god damn magical piece of whatever muscle, and she hopes he appreciates how good he makes her feel. Her hand traipses down his torso to his hips, and she palms his hard length through his shorts, her fingers finding his width and tracing him up and down. Logan hisses through his teeth and he stops kissing her, and she mildly considers returning the favor he so generously bequeathed upon her. She's gone down on Logan plenty of times, and she loves it, but she has this weird tit-for-tat idea in the back of her mind, and also she's just selfish. So she pulls down the zipper of his shorts, digs her fingers through the layers of fabric, and then curls her hand around his cock again so that Logan makes a wonderful noise with his throat.

Yup. She likes this. She likes that he _loves_ this. Veronica slides her hands up and down a few times but he really is so completely hard he's almost throbbing, and she wonders if he's also had a shitty week and this is as much of a relief for him as it is for her. Veronica gives in and undoes the button at the top of his fly, peeling the shorts off his hips until only his boxer briefs are really in the way. She thinks that if they don't waste too much time it shouldn't be too hard to get another orgasm from him, so after tugging his boxers down another inch she flips onto her stomach and reaches for her bedside table. Inside she finds one of the few condoms she keeps in stock, and without turning around she twists her arm so that Logan can grab it from her fingers. She can hear his clothes falling off (the mental picture is enough to warm her all over) and then feels one of his hands on the back of her knee. It slides up her thigh (he must be rolling on the condom with the other hand and she groans just thinking about it, reconsidering the whole favor return idea because his cock is beautiful and she loves it in her mouth), and then his hand is massaging her ass. First it's one cheek, then the other, and then Logan's knee is pressing between her thighs so she has to spread them, and his thumb is pressing into her warm, wet opening.

Veronica groans headily into her mattress and it mixes with a _fuck, Veronica_ from behind her head. Then Logan is pushing his knee into the crux of her thighs and moving her around the bed a little so she's not at such an odd angle, and he can climb up on the twin mattress between her legs and spread her thighs with purpose. He leans over her then, that sparse, sticky chest hair tickling her shoulders, and he kisses the side of her head. He bites the shell of her ear, then her earlobe, and his tongue flicks her earlobe so she moans again, _remembering_. She pushes her hips up, finds his erection, and moans again, inching her hips back more slowly now, because _yes, please_.

Logan exhales into a shaky sigh and seems to forget all about kissing her for a moment. One arm supporting his weight on the mattress next to her breast, he guides himself toward her. The swollen head of his erection penetrates her slowly, testing her wetness, and then Logan sinks the rest of the way in, still slowly, making sure there's enough lubrication without having to add any of his own.

It feels – _so_ – _fucking_ – _good_. Veronica sighs into her pillow it feels so good, her thighs spreading even farther as if she could make the sensation go on indefinitely, though they both bottom out. At this angle he's deep – he's really fucking deep – and the head of his cock presses into her cervix and his balls brush against her exposed clit. It's a bad, desperately good combination, and when Logan eases in and out of her again she knows that second orgasm is not going to be a problem. Logan's other arm comes to rest against the other side of her torso, so his wrists glance against the edges of her breasts. She groans as he fills her again, then again, each time just minutely more quick and efficient than the one before.

She leans herself up on her elbows, not knowing why, and then she's pushing backward until she's on her knees in front of him, and instead of having his weight anchored on the bed he's holding onto her hips, and then one of his hands slides between her thighs and starts massaging her clit with wet fingertips, and that churning of heat is really getting going again and it's pretty unfair that he can do it so easily. Veronica's eyes are shut tight, sensation her only real driving force motivating her actions, as Logan pushes into her again and again and again and again. She pushes back, timing the strokes, and she knows it's going well when he repeats his _fuck, Veronica_ mantra with a delirious little groan of pleasure. It turns her on that she's turning _him_ on, and the heat really blooms between her thighs. His fingers working her over in the metaphorical and physical sense, until she's biting her lower lip because – _fuck_ – he's going to do it again, and it's almost just not fair. But the angle's not one hundred percent right anymore, only like ninety nine and that's one percent more than she wants to think about, so she grabs the wrist that's touching her and pulls it down by her head, so when she starts falling toward the mattress he falls with her, and – _yes, thank fuck_ – it's that delicious, almost just too deep fullness that takes some accommodation on her part but it feels just so fucking good, and she pulls her hips forward and back to show him how great it feels.

Logan groans a heady _"Fuck! Veronica, fuck!_ " into her ear and she knows she's made the right choice, and she has to physically restrain herself from tipping over the brink. She pushes back, grabbing at his hips to compel him to really let loose, and Logan is a fucking mind reader because he picks up the pace to just what she wants it, and she lets out an ingloriously good moan, long in her throat but almost catching twice a second as he rams into her, her orgasm churning right inside her pelvis, tauntingly close.

Logan's cock is dragging against the walls of her vagina in this wholly consuming, all nerve endings on high alert sort of way so that she's not thinking about anything but how close she is to falling apart underneath him as he pummels her inside and out, thighs slapping against her ass like a fucking enthusiastic ovation. And then Logan's tipping closer to her, his arm is just outside her head, the hot skin of his torso is sliding just above her back, and his mouth is just above her ear, and it's not enough to have him penetrating her, but he's literally everywhere – his raggedy breath is all she hears, the image of his fucking hot body is all she can conjure, and the feeling of his cock inside her is all she feels – she touches her own clit – and…and…and that's it.

It's a slow fucking death, this second one, and it lasts over the several seconds it takes to moan out a portmanteau of his name and some swear word.

The delicious feeling of Logan finding his own release follows her quickly, because she can feel him swell as her own orgasm is shuddering through her muscles, and he grabs her hip with one hand in a way that is just not too hard. She grins lazily into her pillow. Logan is still for a long moment, his weight just hovering around her on all sides. Then he collapses on top of her in an overly affected way, his front to her back, and he's not even that sticky anymore because they're both a little sweaty. Probably him more than her; he did most of the work this time, and she's damn thankful and not at all ashamed.

Veronica grunts.

"Logan," she huffs. He is heavy. "I don't mean to be a jerk, but, you ever consider going to the gym? I mean geez."

He rounds his stomach into her back in the way people can, and she grins laughingly and tries to roll over. He doesn't let her. "Logan!" she squeals. "Help, you're so out of shape I can't breathe! Too many Cheddar Bay biscuits!" She's squirming a little, until Logan hisses sharply, grabs her haphazardly, and winces. Ah, right. He's still inside of her. Veronica flexes her muscles around him consolingly and the hiss morphs into a weird mix of pain and purr.

Another half minute, and he pulls out, but instead of getting up all at once he just rolls onto his back. It is just a twin mattress, but they sort out the details, and then Logan's head is in the crook of Veronica's shoulder so the edge of her breast is almost resting on his temple, and she can run her hands lazily through his hair. They are both still totally naked, but the afterglow is a wonderful thing.

"Hey," she says, all of a sudden. "How come you never asked me for my number?"

Logan doesn't answer all at once, but then he tilts his head so they can make eye contact over her arm and shoulder and breast.

"How come you never asked for mine?"

She holds his gaze. "Because of my shellfish allergy."

Logan grins, and after awhile, turns away and closes his eyes.

Veronica is still rolling that information over and over in her head. Why doesn't she have his number? Not that she'd use it, really, but – seriously. They've had sex in pretty much every position there is to have sex, and she still couldn't reach him on a random Tuesday night if she felt like it.

Logan gets up in a way that jars her from her train of thought, and walks across the room to get rid of the condom. He's gloriously naked, tall, tan, and muscled in a way she didn't think was very important to her. It's still not (that important to her), but, damn, when you have the option…right?

"I'm serious though."

Logan finds his boxers on the ground with his eyes, and then crosses the room to grab them. When he leans down, though, she grabs his outstretched arm, and makes him make eye contact with her.

"You like me, right?"

"I do like you. I've liked you twice enough already. Would you like me to like you _more?_ "

Her breath catches in her throat. _More?_ Her first thought is _yes please_ and her second is _I'm not a machine._

She tries to frown at him, but it gets tangled up in her self-satisfied smile. And besides – what is she even saying? _You like me?_ Are they twelve again? Is this recess in the schoolyard? Are they passing notes?

Veronica lets go of his arm, and lets him tug on his boxer briefs. He pauses before putting on his shorts, hands resting on his hips as he looks down at her naked on the bed. She doesn't feel remotely self-conscious.

"I'm just saying – as far as party hook ups go, we're pretty exclusive."

"I'm sorry, is that a good thing? Were you looking for exclusive?"

His tone is jerky, and when she looks up at him, he looks more surprised than anything. They hold each other's gaze for a long moment, Logan's expression indiscernible as he works over an idea in his head, and Veronica tries to organize her thoughts about exclusivity and the fact she's only had sex with one person the entire time she's been at Hearst.

"Veronica, did you – did you have any idea that I was in your poli-sci class last semester?"

Her eyebrows shoot up. _What?_

"Granted, there were about eight hundred people in that class, but, well I was one of them."

She still doesn't quite believe him. He drags his hand over his chin.

"To be fair it took me a week to notice. We hooked up that first weekend back on campus, and at first I thought I was just seeing you places." He shrugs. "It had happened before, which reminds me, if you ever meet a girl named Parker at Delta Gamma, don't mention you know me. But anyway, it was just – you were there, and I was there, and we were in the same place twice a week."

She furrows her brow, trying to place him, thinking back to any of those thirty-odd times she could've seen him in that giant lecture hall. She can't believe it's possible she would've _missed him_.

"I don't believe you."

He raises his eyebrows at her. "You broke the curve on every damn test, Veronica. Dr. Cooper went on and on about how no one had scored a hundred percent on his midterm _ever_ , before you."

Veronica chews on the inside of her cheek. She feels the urge to cover up, all of a sudden, and she picks at the duvet cover.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Logan is still standing at the edge of her bed, looking down at her, making no move to put on the rest of his clothes.

"I guess I just figured…you would notice me. I mean, we found each other all the time. Remember Halloween, and you were dressed in that giant Tweedle Dee outfit?" She does remember, or more vividly, she remembers Logan making creative use of her red clown nose. Logan shrugs again, but with one shoulder this time, and she can tell he's actively working through some sort of emotion. "But you didn't. So I figured…well, that you didn't want to take me to Red Lobster. That you didn't want my phone number. And if all you wanted to do was hook up with me, well, then…"

She looks up at him, which is a mistake, because he's looking at her so seriously, and she's never seen him look so vulnerable. She doesn't want to hear what's in his throat to say next, so she sits up all of a sudden, and then stands, and goes hunting for her shirt.

"Look, it's not a big deal," she starts, but all of the things on the floor are blurring together. "I mean, it sort of makes sense that we don't push this. I mean, it's great now right? And Dick doesn't like me, and we barely make sense together anyway, and I can't even do a keg stand, so – "

He grabs her then, pulls her into a hug and then a kiss. She wishes it wasn't so easy to get wrapped up in his kiss, but it is. It always has been.

"Those are learnable skills, Veronica."

She huffs out a breathless laugh. "Pretty sure when Dick makes a grudge it's a grudge for life."

"Yeah. Not sure he ever forgave Yoshi Story for being so hard to beat."

Veronica grins.

"I'm serious, Logan." He sobers. "You don't want to get to know me, not really." Why and how are they even talking about it? This isn't par for the course. He should be on his way home right now. Or they should be poking at each other through a haze of heady orgasmic afterglow on the bed, or ordering pizza.

Logan breathes in deeply through his nose.

"Pretty sure I know you well already," he argues. "You like it – when I kiss the tip of your nose – " he demonstrates, " – it always makes you smile. And you don't like letting people see you smile, at least not all the way. Whenever you smile really genuinely you can't make eye contact at the same time. And you look amazing naked. Just – fucking unreal, really, and I _hope_ not everyone knows that about you because I'm greedy and self-centered and you should know that about me." She grins, and Logan licks his lips. "And I bet no one knows that when I…when I kiss your neck…" That spot on her neck nearly burns then, all of a sudden, and it's either a shameful burn or an eager burn, she's not sure, but Logan quenches both thoughts by placing his lips there, and her whole body shivers. "Just right here," he whispers. "You fucking _love_ that."

Veronica leans away. "That doesn't mean we should exchange numbers."

"No, but, _I really like you and we should go to Red Lobster_ is usually sufficient."

It's so, absurdly stupid, that Veronica's mouth goes dry.

"You do?" _Like me?_ She can't even finish the sentence.

Logan nods, looking into her eyes, then at her lips. He kisses her softly. "I really do, Veronica Mars. I really like you more than people should like other people."

She sort of laughs. "What is that supposed to mean," she breathes.

"It means that I sort of love you."

She tenses then, all her muscles freezing in place, and Logan kisses the side of her neck under her ear, then her hair, and across her forehead. When she looks into his eyes his expression is unreadable – not cold, necessarily, but, sort of guarded, and all at once she gets that he's told her the truth, and that he really doesn't expect her to say anything in return. And she's so terrified all of a sudden that she's not sure she can speak at all, let alone try to navigate some sort of complicated sentiment like _love_.

"You're crazy."

He smiles halfway. "I've been called worse. By you, I might add."

She grins a thankful, relieved grin, heaviness lifted. "And here I thought you were the cave man."

"See? Just like that."

She grins fully then, ducking her head in a way that proves Logan right. He still has his arms around her, she's still naked, and he's still in his boxers. It's totally bizarre, to be told that you're loved like that, but maybe it's not bizarre at all.

"Logan," she starts to say, and then gives up almost immediately. "I'm really not good at this."

For a moment he doesn't respond. Just shrugs, and holds her tighter. "We'll start slow. Cheddar Bay biscuits okay with you? I really do think it's shrimp week."

"Yeah," she says, smiling, and she'll have to text Mac that Logan is staying the night. "That sounds great."


	2. Pointblank Range for Sitting Ducks

**Pointblank Range for Sitting Ducks  
by** AliLamba **  
rated** naughty  
 **notes** this was literally supposed to be a one-shot.

* * *

It's kind of pretty funny how things start when you have no idea that they're starting.

Case in point: a cute blonde walks into your party, you're horny, you're interested, and when she blows you off you're drunk and impressed enough not to be put off at all. And your friends are being jerks but they think they're helping you get laid when they encourage you to bother her and her friends, and damn if she's not cute enough to go along with it, until she gets really mad.

You go home alone, make a half-assed attempt to masturbate as if that cute blonde had been really into your dick, and she's probably a total freak in the sheets but you're in fact really fucking drunk and you fall asleep in the middle of it all.

This sort of shit just happens, happens all the time.

Logan wakes up, pisses, eats, goes to class, whatever, and he doesn't even necessarily remember the girl until he sees her a few weeks later, and she's got gold glittery eyeshadow on, and her face is fucking iridescent.

"Hey. Unicellular manboy, right?"

Her expression is stilted, more wary than confused, as if she's not sure whether he's going to retaliate. Maybe she calls people unicellular manboys all the time, and the first time they met wasn't special. He continues: "Some people call me Logan, but, whatever – "

"I'm here with my friends."

"The one's playing chubby bunny in the kitchen? Yeah I saw them. They look great."

"Yeah well I should probably go back. Don't want to lose my appetite before it's my turn."

"You don't want to gag either."

She squints at him, probably unsure whether he's being idiotic or rude, and before he can clarify that he was making a joke she's off.

His friends needle him for his lack of game and he goes to another party and eventually finds someone else to take home.

* * *

He's working on some online assignment a few days later, shoving a hamburger into his face because the assignment's twenty minutes late already when he realizes he's only one potted plant away from _her._

"So, we're still on for brick tonight, right? Joseph Gordon-Levitt, lots of broody teenagers, femme fatale…"

"Wait. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a femme fatale? Now I'm way more interested."

"Shut it Wallace," the blonde's friend says, fond. "Veronica, you're into it, right?"

"Hm? Yeah," the blonde says, and now he knows her name.

"Hey I know," the other girl adds, clearly fishing for a more captive audience. "Maybe we could bring your _boyfriend_ with us."

Why does he stop eating? Why does he hold his breath?

"Boyfriend?" the guy questions. "Oh wait – you mean – unicellular manboy?" He laughs loudly, and Logan sits up straighter, and it's a little perverse that he's proud of his nickname. "Yeah, Veronica, you should totally – _totally_ – bring him."

"Oh please. I bet he's one of those guys who eats nachos in theaters."

"Hey," says Wallace. "What's wrong with nachos?"

* * *

Logan has always been popular, but sixth grade is when he had his first ever reciprocated crush.

Marnella Rull treated him like shit then kissed him under some cherry blossoms, and it was the epitome of romance. He's never put the pieces together, because therapy/poetry/introspection is for losers, but he loves cherry blossoms and he's always associated bitchiness with true affection. First it was Marnella, then Sarah the Cunt, and then Jade, who it turns out didn't _actually_ like him and was way more into mean girls herself, most notably, the queen of them all, the girl who broke his fucking heart; the girl who gave him first love, first sex, and his first ever sense of betrayal so large that you just fucking knew the world was the fucking worst…Lilly Kane. It took a heinous, nearly life-ruining year to get over her, but now they're more or less friends. They see each other amicably at Christmas for their parents' sake, and they only hooked up once after the break-up. Not bad, for teenage angst.

All that to say, that maybe Logan's just hard-wired to be mildly obsessed with Veronica Mars (he'll call it a crush), particularly as he keeps seeing her random places, most notably at college parties. It strikes him as totally odd that she even goes to them, because all she does is hang out with her three friends, and then he thinks that maybe she's the smartest girl he's ever met because – damn, they're drinking all their liquor.

* * *

"Veronnnicaaa I know your name's Veronicaaaaa."

She looks pretty annoyed to be interrupted mid-sentence, but he's sort of making a scene she can't ignore.

"So, what you get my firstborn now? That's how this goes?"

The idea is warm and lascivious and confusing in his belly. She's so hot, that's all it is.

"My name's Logan. You can have my firstborn for free."

* * *

"Hey Verrronnniaaaa I found you I foounnnddd youuu."

"You're so observant. I bet Where's Waldo posed a really insignificant challenge for you as an adult."

"Psh, found that dude in like twenty minutes beat that."

"Twenty minutes, wow, I wonder if you can change your major."

"I bet you could change your major – to being so cute." He tries to tap her nose but spills her beer instead.

"Logan!"

He grins, which is a dumb response. "You remembered my name. I get to impregnate you."

* * *

It's said that stress interrupts the memory-making process, which is either really generous, or really fucking cruel of the human brain. But it goes without saying that Logan's memories of being sober and talking to Veronica Mars that first semester are hazy. Right before Christmas break he knows that he ran into her under some mistletoe and he realized it before she did, and he can hardly fucking remember their conversation besides she was only barely mean to him at all. It's fucking surreal. Less surreal is the look of disgust she gives him when he tries to make out with her.

Certainly there are other girls. Other blondes. He goes home that winter break and hooks up with an old favorite, but it just, doesn't, feel the same. Sarah even tells him he's acting weird. He's just, he's always had two speeds: monogamous and just fucking _not_ , and he's feeling more of the former than the latter when it comes to Veronica. It's really, really nonsensical, really, because she's really given him zero indication that he even stands a chance with her, but it feels even more futile to hook up with girls he's not really interested in anymore.

* * *

The wet t-shirt contest was not his idea.

He just…wants that on record.

It's not the _stupidest_ thing they could've done to fulfill the 'goodwill towards man' element of their charter. They could've, like, he doesn't know – picked up trash on some beach, which would've totally ruined a morning of his life. At least this way he doesn't have to alter his schedule at all.

" _Come on ladies!_ " Mercer is their jerk emcee. "It's for _charity!_ Panda bears in Taiwan need love too!"

It goes without saying that _Panda bears in Taiwan_ was their very first thought. Not that, it's, you know, wrong for the panda bears, but, Logan didn't sign up for this shit, is only there because freshman have no rights in his world, and when he's standing on a hastily erected stage preparing to have his tiny white t-shirt doused with freezing water and it's fucking February – he wishes he could be anywhere else. Maybe with the panda bears in Taiwan.

Lots of people are shaking money at him and just in general, and he has this really awful thought that he _hopes_ he doesn't know anyone in the crowd. "C'mon, c'mon!" Mercer goads, shaking a bucket like it's slop for the pigs. "This is only enough for a squirt gun! We want him _drenched_ , ladies, am I right? So lemme see that _mooonaaayyy!_ "

Mercer turns away from the crowd and makes a frustrated gesture at Logan, managing to convey that it's time for Logan to start acting slutty, or Mercer will end his fucking life.

Logan barely manages _not_ to roll his eyes. And it takes a lot of fucking effort.

He tries to think of the pandas as he maybe starts moving a little to the music – and fuck it's awkward. He lets it be awkward, goes into a dumb little personal mamba, then – fuck it, fuck it all for those tiny baby pandas – he lifts up his shirt a little. The crowd goes fucking nuts, which is a surprise, so he does it again, maybe lifts his shirt up a little more, and then he and Mercer are sharing this bewildered _Whatever, it's working_ sort of look so he pulls the hem of his shirt all the way up and bites it between his teeth, so it's really not a shirt at all unless it's only his shoulders that are cold.

The screaming of women who are barely adults is nearly deafening then, and he flexes around a bit as Mercer starts shoving bills into his bucket, and then two of his elder brothers are running at him with even bigger buckets full of water and they're ambushing him from both sides, and he gets totally drenched.

For a moment he just stands there, arms out uselessly from how he tried to prepare for the blow, water dripping into his eyes, head ducked and mouth open on a shocked exhale. His frat brothers are laughing, high fiving each other, and Logan finally grins at how stupid it all is, tips his head up to examine the crowd, and that's when he sees her, near the back, no, in fact all the way at the back, and she's smiling in this way that tells him she's just stopped laughing.

Fuck _yeah_ save all the pandas.

Save all of the pandas all of the time.

* * *

He's allowed to towel dry his hair after but Mercer makes him keep his t-shirt wet, even gives him a little fanny pack to wear in case people are feeling in _the giving spirit_ as the night goes on.

He's just treated himself to a very large beer when it happens.

"You know there's a very real possibility you could get hypothermia, right."

He knows who it is before he turns around, and it's hard to describe how he handles the excitement (answer: _poorly_ ) because she's never sought him out first before.

"Yeah, well," he drawls, idiotic grin already in place. "We needed a better charity for next year."

"What, like, the Darwin Awards?"

"Better known as the Logan Echolls Memorial Fund."

She grins, and a small puff of laughter escapes through her teeth. She looks mildly concerned about it, and then rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, whatever." She fishes a dollar from her pocket. "I'm just here for the pandas."

He takes the cash from her with a somber nod and sticks it in his fanny pack, balancing his pretty-full beer in one hand, and when he's finished zipping the damn thing his head pops up at her small twitter of laughter, and he covers his embarrassment with a swarthy grin.

"Hey, cut it out, you know you're jealous."

"So jealous. I too wish I could look like an enthusiastic dad at Disney World."

He laughs heartily then, nearly spilling his beer, and it only peters off when he realizes that she's staring a little at his chest, and then it's sort of hard to sustain any kind of emotion – or any thought at all – because, fuck, she's staring at his chest like she's maybe kind of interested, and that is a thought that has never crossed his mind before as possible.

"D'you – d'you want a drink?"

Her gaze snaps up to his eyes all of a sudden, and it's probably a trick of the light that her cheeks look a little more rosy. "No," she says immediately. "My friends are here, and I uh, well I just wanted to do my part for the apes."

A grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.

"We're collecting for the pandas."

"Oh I must've just been thinking of you then," she says, without missing a beat, and he deludes himself into thinking that her cheeks _are_ just a little bit pinker then, and maybe he should be more into this whole see-through shirt idea. She rubs her palms on her jeans. "Good luck or whatever."

He realizes his heart is beating a little faster and a little harder when he sees the back of her, and he drinks deeply from his beer, grinning like a chimp.

He's feeling pretty good a few hours later. Veronica is nowhere to be found anymore, which he supposes is par for the ever-loving course. The party is in full swing and they're on something like their twelfth keg, and he hasn't lacked at all for company. An egotistical, infectious confidence has taken root in his chest, and he can't stop thinking about the girl ( _enthusiastic dad at Disney World_ – god damn it's still funny). It's to the point where his brothers are hovering at his elbow, picking off the low-hanging fruit. One girl appears to be in it to win it though, and she's sent a few not-very-subtle glances at Dick while she finds excuses to touch Logan and laugh at every fifth thing he says. He's just coming around to the _fuck it, why not_ stage, when there's a tap at his shoulder.

And he smiles like the fucking sun because she hasn't left afterall.

Even though she looks pissed as hell.

"Hey," Dick starts to say, always magnanimous in front of pretty girls. "Can we help you with something?"

"Yeah I want my money back."

Logan's confused but still happy to see her, especially when she crosses her arms over her chest and fixes him with a glare. Twice in one night, hard to complain.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she says, and she leans forward to pluck at his shirt. "For one, your shirt's not even wet anymore. I feel like promises were made on your flyers. And for another, I found out that pandas don't even exist in Taiwan, which is, I don't want to say a coincidence, but, it certainly feels coincidental."

"What about pandas?" the other girl tries to ask, but Veronica holds up a finger.

"Excuse me, we're in the middle of something here," she says, and Logan grins even bigger.

"Look," he plays along. "I'm not sure we're offering refunds. Maybe store credit, but even then – "

"Then I'm going to need to talk to the manager."

Logan's heart starts beating just a little bit harder inside his chest. His grin drops, is pretty much gone, and in…like, a dangerously good way. He's got to be making it up in his head, this idea that she's inventing a pretense for privacy, but if his mind wants to run away with it then shit he's going to let it. It just doesn't sound at all like she's joking.

"We don't have a manager - " Dick is in the middle of saying, when Logan interrupts him, all in a rush.

"Sure thing. It's right back here." And he's putting down his beer.

She nods curtly, and then falls in at his elbow as he starts navigating through the party. His mind is spinning with thoughts, because he thinks he's right, and if he's right, he doesn't know where to lead her. His bedroom seems pretty damn presumptuous, but then again nowhere else really offers a lockable door, and he doesn't want to try to find a shady spot in the backyard or a free couch in the basement because _what the actual fuck_ , and then he thinks that maybe the pool room could be deserted because Dick broke all the pool sticks playing quidditch, so he heads upstairs, and his heartrate really spikes when she follows him without comment.

He releases a relieved and messy sigh when he opens the door and no one's making out in the corner of the pool room, and then he has to hold his breath as she walks in past him. He stands like an idiot in the doorframe as she takes spins slowly inside the room, looking around like she's not at all uncomfortable to be there, and she has some mild interest in the décor.

"So are you going to close the door?"

He literally can't think of one god-damn thing to say.

"Am I?"

She sighs and the tension leaves her shoulders.

"Yeah. I think you probably should."

He still doesn't quite move, and she takes pity on him.

"Look, it's clear that you're going to be having sex tonight." She steps closer, pinching his shirt again. "I mean, you're basically asking for it."

It's hard to quite say, _yeah, I'd beg_ , so he remains reliably mute. She's standing really close now, close enough that she has to look up at him, and he's still in the fucking doorway like some fucking amateur.

"Turns out I'm pretty invested in saving the pandas."

He doesn't know what to do – at all – so he acts one hundred percent on instinct when he bends down and kisses her, and it's the biggest relief of his fucking _life_ when she doesn't knee him in the balls and instead does this really miraculous thing of kissing him back. He sort of throws the door closed behind them and then wraps his arms around her, not playing it cool whatsoever, but fuck it all because she honestly seems into it.

"Does the door lock?" she asks, and it's not a fucking ridiculous question but everything is fucking ridiculous.

"Yeah," he whispers, not willing to disconnect their lips in case she feels like changing her mind about the whole kissing thing.

"Then you better lock it."

His heart – it must be a fucking frail organ, he thinks, because it's having such a hard time, but then he thinks that it's never been put through this much pressure before.

"I'm going to lock it."

"Then fucking lock it already."

He does, darting away, pulling at his crotch so his zipper won't cut into his raging hard-on, and the lock sounds so fucking loud to his ears, maybe because when he turns around, Veronica's sitting on the pool table, and she's not wearing a shirt anymore, and her bra is blue, and fuck he's going to last three fucking seconds.

"Your only task is _not_ just to keep the door closed," she chides, because maybe it looks like he's not going to be able to move.

"Oh good. I'm very task-oriented."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Then come here and kiss me."

Logan's good at this. He's good at tasks. He's good at smiling at her, moving towards her, not creaming his pants when she moves her thighs apart and he gets to settle in between them, and yeah, his dick is pushing into the table but his hands get to go fucking everywhere – into her hair, and over all of her skin, and while he's kissing her he gets to drag the straps of her bra down over her shoulders and he should play it cool – a cooler guy would play it cool – but he's fucking wearing a fanny pack so he pulls back and stares unabashedly at her breasts.

"No refunds," she whispers, and it's got that faint lilt of self-consciousness that breaks his fucking heart. He looks up at her, licks his lips, manhandles her breasts with two hands like a fucking animal (the ape reference comes to mind) until she laughs. He leans forward and kisses her again, and she wraps her arms around his shoulders, and he just, physically, can't stop mauling at her, all over her body, until she's making little moaning noises in the back of her throat and those are driving him _insane._

"I want to go down on you," he breathes, and Veronica's eyes widen.

"I'm not going to say no."

He grins, thankfully, and he sinks down onto his knees and starts tugging at her jeans, unbuttoning the fly and taking her help when he has to pull the pants off her hips, and her underwear is blue too, that's what he notices, while she's supporting her weight on her arms and picking her hips off the pool table and he's tugging her pants off all at once and then she's like – she's just fucking naked, and he's allowed to look at her – and her bra is still around her chest and the cups are down and _fuck, oh no, he needs this to last_ , so he starts going down on her, and the angle's just a little bit fucked because she's not laying back onto the pool table, and she's so fucking short it slays him, so his head is butting into her belly until he guides her back onto the table, and then she's wiggling around on the table as he keeps eating her out, and nothing has fucking tasted better, and it only fucking tastes better when she starts touching his hair, and then she's just gushing this preorgasmic fluid and – just – fuck fuck fuck – it's going into his _mouth and this is fucking Veronica Mars_ and it's so fucking awful that _he_ has to stop, because it's going to be a problem for _him_ if she comes.

"Oh you fucking gentleman."

He grimaces, then tries to meet her gaze, and when she sees his expression hers opens: her eyes and her mouth, and then she's saying: " _Oh_."

"It's cool I got this," he says, and Veronica's eyes are darkening, and she's wetting her dry lips.

She sits up then, shaky, all limbs and nudity, and Logan doesn't know what to do for a moment because she looks so good when she does it.

She sits on the edge of the table, looking him up and down, and then she reaches out with one hand, and he flinches, thinking she's going to touch his dick and then it'll be all fucking over, and she must know this, because she grins, licks her lips again. "Don't worry. I'll go slow."

He tries to laugh, but it's fucking weak.

She grabs at the fanny pack first, unbuckling it, letting it fall to the floor. Then she reaches for his shirt at either hip, and she tugs the shirt up, and over his head. Her fingers trail across his chest, through his chest hair, and Logan closes his eyes because it feels good, but it's not _so_ much of a step that he can't handle the contact. He starts breathing more evenly, a deep, heady in and exhale, and when her fingers are at his belt buckle he sort of more or less has a handle on things.

"Lie down on the ground."

He opens his eyes, sees her looking at him with fucking intent, and he doesn't even think about how gross the floor is when he spots a good place to follow her command and does it. Seriously, it's clear she doesn't care either, because then she's straddling him, and his heart is fucking _racing_ , and she tugs his shorts down his hips until they're at his knees. She leans down, kisses him.

"Please tell me you have a condom."

He nods, a little too enthusiastically, reaching for his shorts. The condom's been a stable fixture for awhile, never staying so long as when he's been hoping to use the condom on _Veronica_ , and when he rolls it on she watches, biting her lip, moving herself up and down a little on his chest in this wholly distracting little phantom movement, and fuck it's such a relief when it's on, and when she's holding him in her hands, the scant lubrication of the condom letting her fingers slide up and down too easily. She pushes her hips back, readies him at her opening, and Logan's looking up at her turned face in genuine fucking hedonistic _awe_ as she sinks down onto him. They both release breaths when he's inside of her, and Veronica starts panting before he does, because – _fuck_ – it must feel fucking amazing to her too, he hopes, he fucking prays, because the feeling is _surreal_ on his end. Logan puts his hands on her hips and Veronica closes her eyes, rising up, sinking down.

She does that for a minute as they both get used to each other, and Logan licks his lips, because it's hard not to take over the tempo when Veronica is clearly enjoying what she's got. He's never been great at coming when he's not in control, so it's not – he's not going to say it's _easy_ – but he can do it, keep his head in the game as she rides him on the pool room floor. He stares at her breasts, at her rosy nipples, and nothing in his fucking life has looked better. He grabs her ass and she moans, and it's enough, he's had enough of this going slow shit, so he digs his fingers into her hips and pushes into her. Veronica's eyes open. She looks down at him, her lower lip sagging, and Logan does it again. She closes her eyes, and Logan goes again, and when she doesn't try to take over the tempo, he keeps going, and she's moaning a lot now, like, fuck, he hopes she's not just the best fucking actress he's ever seen or some shit, because it looks like she's fucking loving it, and that makes him almost lose it, so he grits his teeth and brings up the tempo in shades so it's not just start and then go, but she's handling everything that he's giving her, so he does it – he really just loses himself in the action of fucking her, and then he gets to see it – her face when she comes.

It's so concentrated, the way her brow bunches together just so, the way her mouth drops open without thought, and he can _feel it_ when her muscles do that thing around his dick, and it takes no fucking effort whatsoever to come himself.

She opens her eyes and looks down at him, and her eyes are fucking _glowing._

"Oh you fucking gentleman," she says, and Logan grins like the sun.

And after, it's hard to keep the grin off his face, and she gives him shit for it, poking his ribs, telling him he looks like he's keeping the location of the gold a secret. It's not until she's pulling them apart that he realizes it could've been some huge let-down, like the _Speed Racer_ movie.

She doesn't make so much as an attempt to cuddle, or spend the night, and it doesn't even register on the spectrum of _things that are surprising_ given how everything else has gone.

Logan tugs the shorts back up his legs and sits up.

"So should we, uh, should you maybe give me your number?"

She releases a puff of laughter, then puts her head through the head hole of her shirt.

"Maybe that's not such a great idea."

He has a stab of worry that the joy of fucking has been one-sided, that maybe he hasn't performed his tasks to her standards, but then she puts a hand on her flushed face.

"That's not to say – _shit_ – that it, uh, sucked, or whatever."

"Oh good. I was worried."

He sounds like he wasn't but he _was_ , worried, and she looks at him with a blank expression.

"But it's cool if you only want to use me for my body. I mean, I get it. I've been used before."

She's smiling again. "It was for the zebras."

"Pandas," he corrects, winking, and she rolls her eyes, amused.

"Whatever. I was totally serious about there being no pandas in Taiwan though. You should _probably_ look into that."

Logan shrugs.

"Maybe we'll move some there."

"Oh really."

"Yeah, I made a ton of money tonight. And what could a panda really cost, like, ten dollars?" If she recognizes the Lucille Bluth homage, she doesn't show it, but Logan's still pretty happy about the whole _recently fucked_ thing and the _Veronica Mars_ thing so he lets it pass. She slips on her shoes.

* * *

It doesn't really start anything. Logan is willing to die happy knowing that Veronica has slept with him once, is even maybe coming around to the idea that it'll probably never happen again. The world keeps spinning, seems in no particular rush to get them together (their lives do not revolve around parties and on any given day someone at Hearst is throwing at least one), but the next time they see each other their eyes meet over the snacks table, and they look each other up and down before Veronica bites her lower lip, shakes her head, and leaves him hanging.

He finds that just so totally bewildering so he doesn't immediately follow her, but he certainly, well… _hovers._ He tells himself it's not creepy, but he's keeping her in line sight all evening, and he doesn't get remotely drunk. Veronica, it looks like, is having a fucking _blast_ , and it's a pretty sweet torture just to watch her from afar. He's trying to come up with something to say to her, some way to break in to her circle of friends that won't piss her off too much, when he realizes the party has entered into that winding down phase, and he hasn't even finished his beer.

It is totally, completely, _pathetic_ , and he vows to get shit-faced the second he gets home.

He's just chugging the last of it when he overhears her.

"Yeah I'll catch up with you later. The host is in my psych class and we have a project together. It won't take long."

"Are you sure you don't want us to wait for you?"

"Nah, I got my taser. We're all good."

He tries not to think anything of it, until she's at his elbow a minute later.

"Hey."

He looks down at her. "I am not in your psych class," he observes, and he is such a fucking stalker. Her eyes widen a bit, as if she is having a similar thought.

"I know," she says. Her gaze darts away, then darts back. "I was kind of thinking we could do something else for the pandas tonight."

* * *

No one in Logan's life has every accused him of genius. But they could've tried to warn him.

 _Case in point:_ He's not really _trying_ to define their relationship, because, fuck, the hook-ups are great enough on their own, but he doesn't really get the scope of their _non_ -relationship until about a month in. He's drunk, it's the first day of spring break, and he's surprised to see her away from her friends while waiting in line for the bathroom.

"Veronica, there you are," he murmurs, sliding his arms around her from behind and digging his nose into her neck. She nearly woke the fucking dead last week when he did something to her neck somewhere, and he's invested in getting to the bottom of it. "Was worried you weren't gonna show."

And then he realizes that something is totally wrong. Unconsciously it's the smell that tips him off first, but realistically it's that she's a lot taller than he remembered, and her hair is a slightly different texture, and when he pulls back and she looks at his face he realizes he doesn't know who this girl is at all but she is not fucking Veronica Mars.

"Whoa, shit," is all he can think to say, falling back, feeling vaguely horrified, and the girl is looking like someone has played a joke on her but it's not exactly the worst thing that could've happened.

"No, it's fine," she says. She pauses. "You'd be surprised by how often that happens to me, darn it."

He's relieved at her joke, but still on edge. "I guess you just have one of those, uh, necks."

"People say it looks just like Jennifer Aniston's."

He smiles then, feeling better.

"For the record I don't think it counts as cheating," she says, looking a little sympathetic. "At least, I won't tell if you won't."

"Oh no, it's not – " Logan starts, before he realizes he has no idea how to finish the sentence. He really should be working harder to get Veronica's number. "It's cool."

About an hour later he realizes that not-Veronica is one of the sisters at this joint Sigma Tau/Delta Gamma party, so they both laugh awkwardly and introduce themselves. Logan. Parker. Nice to meet you. Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other, maybe. Stay away from my neck, ha ha.

He thinks about this the next time he's alone with the real Veronica, with his hand under her shirt and fondling her breast, his mouth kissing her neck as she presses herself into him, short denim skirt not doing much to make him go slow.

"D'you ever meet a girl named Parker?"

She pauses, her eyes opening. "Why, are you asking for a threeway?"

Logan laughs, feeling a little embarrassed. "No, uh, nevermind." He keeps kissing along her neck, drawing her back in, fingers twisting her nipple in the gentle way she likes. His thoughts are still marginally elsewhere. Like – that he thinks that if he'd kissed the _real_ Veronica's neck in public, the end result wouldn't have been a whole lot better.

"But I could like, I could kiss you in public, right?"

She steps away from him immediately, pulling down her shirt. "Maybe I should go."

"What?" He's lost. " _Shit._ No." His erection is painful inside his pants and he has to tug at his crotch just to give it some room.

His gaze focuses on her again, and he finds her staring at his crotch, then his face. "I didn't mean it," he says, automatically. "I'm an idiot. Ignore everything I ever say."

The ghost of a grin teases the corners of her lips.

He holds a hand out to her (the other still making sure nothing happens to his dick while it's still confined), and after a long moment she takes it. He exhales through his nose, and he tugs on her hand, until she's back against his chest and he can dig his nose through her hair, inhale her scent all over again, and kiss the side of her face, and then her cheek, and then he can use his forefingers to move her hair out of the way so he can kiss her full on the lips.

She grins after a moment, and it's only noticeable because he's still trying to kiss her, and then her hands are traveling, making little trips over his shirt and his arms and his stomach, before her hands go right to his belt. He groans a little, groans even more when she starts pulling it apart, and then he really fucking loses his shit when she breaks the kiss, because she's breaking it to sink down onto her knees.

And he promises never to try to kiss her in public for as long as he lives.

* * *

And so it goes. She makes a point of not introducing him to her friends, and makes a point of not making friends with Dick. They don't exchange numbers, they don't meet for coffee, and every time they do hook up it seems like a really happy accident. A few weeks later it's time for summer vacation, no promises, no big send-off, just a fuck and a thank you, see you next year.

* * *

The day he realizes that he might be in love with Veronica Mars is a bad one.

It starts with Dick literally hurling chunks onto his bed.

"Dude, I got _so wasted_ last night I think I slept with a du– "

Yeah.

So while Dick is rolling around on his floor and Logan is doing laundry, considering breakfast, he realizes that he overslept, and that _Introduction to Law in the Political Arena_ starts in friggen twenty minutes, and that there's no fucking way Dick knows how to use a mop. So he swears some really choice swear words, takes the sort of shower that is literally just water rinse and towel dry, gurgles some mouth wash and puts on the first clothes that don't reek. He kicks Dick awake enough while rummaging for school supplies to warn that if his friend doesn't clean up after himself he's going to wax Dick's asshole with gorilla glue.

He has to sprint across campus, push through like eighty freshman, and he still gets a really rude look from one of the presumptive TAs as they're trying to close the lecture hall doors at 9:05.

"Alright alright alright," Dr. Cooper shouts from the bottom of the room, coliseum-type seating in a 180-degree arc around him.

Logan is hungry, annoyed, out of breath and sweaty. When he's passed a syllabus from the person on his right he's not in a thankful mood, and the person breaks eye contact almost immediately. Just as well. He'd only be trying to make friends to see if this person brought any snacks, and that's probably not fair.

Dr. Cooper starts going over the syllabus, introducing the TAs for the semester, describing how he's going to split them up into reading groups. They'll have five tests with him and weekly assignments with their reading groups and _that's it_ (emphasis from the poli-sci PhD, not from him). It's an annoying amount of work for an intro class, but not an altogether new concept for his fourth semester at Hearst, and Logan sinks into his seat wondering how much last year's answers are going to cost him.

He's just starting to get over his grumbling stomach, just starting to let last night's lack of sleep wash over him, when he hears the voice.

"Sorry, Dr. Cooper. I was just wondering – when are we going to start addressing today's political landscape?"

It's as much of a blur of noise as the first twenty minutes of class, so at first Logan ignores it. His eyelids are heavy. The words turn to mumbling in his brain.

"When?"

"Well I just sort of assumed, I mean, election year and everything."

"We'll be going over that in time for primary season."

"Yes, but – that's in just a few weeks, sir."

There's a momentary pause of interest.

"Are you suggesting we skip over two hundred years of political history just to see who wins this year's Ohio caucus?"

There's a mild twitter of laughter, and Logan barely opens his eyes enough to see what sort of thing is keeping him awake. Some blonde near the front. Typical. Of course they have one of those.

A slow grin spreads across his face. He's been pretty into authoritative blondes lately – no, lie – he's _always_ been into authoratative blondes, and it just so happens he's got a great one in his life these days. _Saturday night_ starts to replay in his head, Veronica's aforementioned blonde hair all mussed out of her pigtails, lip-gloss smeared over half her face and his dick. _Damn_. It's pretty unprofessional, but – sue him, it's morning, and he didn't get much sleep. This girl's voice even sounds like hers, and that's – that's just asking for it, really.

He cracks an eye and tries to find the blonde again in the room, but he's too tired and too distracted by better thoughts to really fight to find her in the crowd.

It's probably not her, and his delirious mind has just made another stab at supplementing her for the other annoying people in his life.

Winter break in Aspen sort of penetrates his sleepy fantastical thoughts then, and the modest amount of blood drains from his dick. Poor Parker.

He hadn't been trying to hook up with anyone anyway, and Parker's lack of subtlety when it came to flirtation was more than a little grating after the first few days – after the last six months, actually. For those first few days it was easy to ignore her, her affections diluted by their large group of friends, and it was easy not to feel guilty every time he emotionally shut down in front of her when she tried to do something playful for his attention.

But then they were all in the hot tub after a long day of snowboarding and greasy dinner meats, pretty close to immediately drunk, and Dick had to go open his big fat mouth.

 _"Dude, did you know that they don't have payphones anymore?"_

* * *

 _"Yeah! I'm serious. There's like – none left. I have been looking, literally, for like weeks, and they're all like…gone."_

 _Logan grins and sinks farther into the hot tub, because of, well, Veronica, and Veronica being so smart and funny and hot and easily slipping into his mind because of bourbon and beer. And before he knows it his alcohol-infused blood is moving places, and Parker is pressing herself into his side, and he's too drunk and too tired to stop her. It does more or less ruin his happy buzz though, and he finishes his beer, hoping to get some of it back before he has to be a dick to Parker again._

 _And then while he's trying to get drunk and not think about Parker or Veronica, the conversation predictably shifts to all manner of hotties on campus and which ones do inglorious sex acts, and Logan laughs along with something Chip says because Chip is always an idiot, and then Chip is a peevish asshole._

 _"What do you know?" he taunts. "You've slept with like – one girl – your entire college career."_

 _"Shut up, Chip."_

 _"The fuck?" Parker giggles, drunk and overconfident. "Is he serious Logan?"_

 _Logan is holding Chip's gaze._

 _He tries to shrug, play it off, and he receives a fine chorus of cat calls and wolf howls. It's not like they're wrong._

 _"You can't be serious," Parker whispers into his shoulder, and Logan knows he should be pushing her away, but he's tired of pushing Parker away, and his mind is spinning with images of Veronica and spinning in general and… His head drops back, and he closes his eyes, because fuck wouldn't he love her to be there just then. Wouldn't he love it if Parker and Veronica body swapped like some really fucked-up version of Freaky Friday, but instead of just like, their brains and personalities and shit they could literally swap bodies, because then Veronica would be touching his thigh and her fingers would be moving toward his dick and he would be getting ready to eat Veronica out on the lip of the hot tub, then fuck her underwater._

 _He fully appreciates how drunk he is when Parker's hand finds his erection at half-mast, and he doesn't stop her from touching it even in a hot tub full of his friends. It's a totally fucked up situation, made more fucked up by insecurities about how Michelle Clearwater takes it up the ass and everyone else in his frat seems to know this and glorify it like it's part of the Farmer's Almanac._

 _The water is hot and he's surprisingly, sloppily drunk by the time he realizes there's an actual possibility he might come, and he tries to play it cool as he reaches underwater for her hand to stop her work. From the corner of his eye he can see her still, that look of hurt/embarrassment/fear flash across her face, and because he's an asshole – he gave her plenty of indication, he tells himself – he only barely cares._

 _Parker gets out of the hot tub just a few minutes later, at a really abrupt mid-someone-else's-story moment that everyone notices. A few of her sorority sisters follow her out, confused and concerned, much to the oblivious complaints of Dick, who hasn't been able to stop bringing up payphones and the lack thereof as if it will suddenly become interesting to any of them._

He jolts awake with a nervous stomach, and it takes a minute to realize that what's in his head is in the past. He's in class. Class is over. Someone is trying to get around him to leave, and he tucks in his legs so they can move through the aisle. He starts to get ready himself, picking up his notebook, trying to remember his syllabus. He tries to ask his neighbor which reading group he's in but the neighbor is ignoring him (some friend), then telling Logan that it's all online and to check his electronic mail.

Logan frowns.

* * *

He's checking for his name on the reading lists an hour later (it's sorted rather predictably by last name, he and everyone Delbert to Glibbman stuck with teacher's assistant Amanda J), when he remembers the blonde in his class, and again the thought flits through his brain that she reminded him of Veronica. The thought is suddenly disconcerting though, maybe because of that unnerving guilty feeling involving Parker, and he wonders whether he should tell Veronica that he sort of unintentionally was maybe date raped over winter break, when he wonders why he wants to tell her at all.

They've just _barely_ made a regular thing of it, the whole _hey look we're at this party together thing maybe we would have more fun boning somewhere else – or here, if that's your thing and you're feeling impatient,_ and judging from their limited pillow talk, he's pretty sure it doesn't count as a relationship. It's definitely a little different from how things were last year, when he wouldn't think of her every time he got ready to go out with his friends and would instead focus on how much Dick spent on his hair to make it look the fucking same, or whether Michelle Clearwater would be there and whether she liked it up the ass.

But something changed after summer vacation, he's realizing now, which is stupid when Dick is still sprawled on the ground and the room still smells like vomit, because, his friends in Aspen were right – he hasn't slept with another girl since Veronica let him sleep with her. And just by _a plus b_ sort of logic, he worries that what happened with Parker in Aspen might've counted as cheating.

And that sort of brings up the whole idea of whether they even have a relationship to cheat on, when she's still refusing to give him her phone number with snarky little deflections that drive him _crazy_ ( _"I only use payphones"_ ), and when he only knows her major is psychology through inference.

He thinks he…shit, he thinks he really fucking likes her. And the only experience he has to draw from is his ex, Lilly, and shit he _loved_ her, and – shit – does he _love_ Veronica? It seems really stupid to be thinking that now, especially when he's thinking of his ex, and thinking about trying to find the gorilla glue, and whatever.

He's spared the mental labor as Dick starts to stir on the ground.

"Ugh," he groans, then blinks up at Logan. Logan looks down at him with a frown.

"So…who's the lucky guy?"

* * *

It's a really ridiculously average day when he realizes he does love her.

He's got all his syllabi and has been to one meeting with Amanda J, and has more or less figured out a good schedule for when to set his alarm clock Monday through Friday. Over the weekend he and Dick played golf and then drank beer in inner tubes at his dad's country club, so in general, it was a pretty good way to waste another forty-eight hours of existence. He didn't once mention Veronica, didn't really spend a whole great deal of time thinking about her because Dick had some pretty epic concerns about his sexuality that he didn't want to/really wanted to broach the entire time.

Logan's figured out that if he arrives exactly eighteen minutes early for _Political Law_ , he can reliably get a seat in the back row, just where it's shaded by the projection booth, and where he can probably get a decent amount of sleep twice a week. It's a pretty sweet get, all things considered.

Dr. Cooper has just arrived and Logan is just about to close his eyes when she talks again, that girl, that blonde from last week. And there are a few groans from the people around him already.

"Dr. Cooper, I wondered if we could spend a few minutes at the start of class talking about Citizen's United."

It really does sound like her voice, maybe. He thinks. Veronica doesn't spend a lot of her time talking to him, and this class starts earlier than his brain does. Logan opens his eyes, sees that Dr. Cooper is entertaining the idea, looking pleasantly surprised to have an active participant not begging for extra credit or a study guide.

"Citizen's United? Why do you ask?"

"Sir, the District Court just _denied_ their motion for a preliminary injunction. This is – sir, this is _huge_ news."

It appears to be not so huge news for many other people in the room, as she only gets a few murmurs of interest and a few more groans of disinterest. Dr. Cooper's grin deepens, all proud uncle and it's only week two.

"We'll get to it, Veronica. Have patience."

Logan does not sit up all at once. No, he does it in this stupid way, where his eyes open wide while his brain processes the thought, and then like a robot set to perform one function he sits up straight in his chair, and starts scanning the room for her.

 _Veronica?_

He's all focused attention all at once, hunting her with his eyes. _No. No way._ No way is she in his class and he didn't even notice until a friggen fortnight in. That's just – that would be impossible, he'd identified her last Halloween from fifty feet and she'd been wearing a hula hoop inside her clown costume and a big red nose.

 _Oh shit._ Of course she's in his class. He finds her easily, she's there, third row back, three seats in.

Veronica Mars is in his class.

The shock switches quickly to amusement, then glee, then smugness, because it's too much to process at once and his brain is a simple machine. But smugness sticks. He feels smug being the first to find her, wondering how he can process this to his advantage. He considers raising his hand just to draw her attention, but his brain can only come up with dumb things to say like " _What about Comrades United we haven't even discussed comrades united_ " but it only barely makes sense and isn't even that funny, so he sits with the information all lecture – that Veronica is sitting maybe a hundred feet in front of him, and she's staring straight ahead taking notes during the lecture like such a diligent little student, and he smiles for the entire hour like a friggen, friggen idiot.

What is it?

He can't even figure it out.

She's beautiful, sure, and holy hot damn is she a good lay, not that he has, you know, a _phone book_ of names to compare to, but he's been around the maypole so to speak and he's had plenty of pretty good sex and he knows that if you don't know to hide your teeth when you're giving a blow job then you're not really paying attention – stuff like that. He'd been popular in high school. He'd been popular in college, and he is part of a fraternity now. I mean, sex just comes with the territory of his life, and, well, yeah. Veronica.

It takes all of his energy to contain this information as the lecture ends. The people around him all leave immediately – backrow etiquette and all – and he watches as Veronica hangs out at the front, presumably to actually have a vaguely adult conversation with the adult teaching their class. It's damn impressive, which is a thought he has literally never had about a brownnoser before.

So it's even sweeter to savor the information as he leaves, knowing he has a secret, a damn good one, and he's going to absolutely _adore_ springing it on her at the most opportune time he can muster, and it's going to be so god damn wonderful when he does.

He goes home and looks up Citizen's United.

* * *

They're throwing a party that night at his frat, and Veronica has about a 50% track record of showing up to those. He's grinning all during set-up and keeps getting shit for it, but the secret is warm and jumpy in his belly like a baby bunny, and he refuses to tell anyone.

It's just going to be too good.

The party's in full swing by the time he finds her in the crowd, she and her friends on their favorite couch, drinking beer. His smile is fucking huge then, and he has the worry that he's just going to blurt it out all of a sudden – _Hey VeronicaIm'inyourpolisciclass_ – so he hangs back for awhile, plays it cool, even though at this point he knows her friends are Mac, Wallace, and Piz, and he's had trivial "oh hey" interactions with all of them, so it wouldn't be too awkward to just walk up and say oh hey and _veronicai'minyourpolisciclass_.

He keeps checking in with her, not literally, because he's only a little bit of a stalker, but with his eyes, he'll sort of keep tabs, and he knows _she knows_ he's doing it because her smile is so toothy, and she keeps flipping her hair. It makes the bunny do somersaults just to watch her do it, and he almost shouts across half the _party Hey VeronicaI'minyourpolisciclass_ , but he doesn't, and he tries to drink more beer so he won't be such a fucking dork when the times comes.

It's maybe two hours later when she finds him sitting on the stairs that go up, nursing an imported beer and listening to Dick whine about his math class.

Veronica nods politely at Dick.

"Dick."

" _Ronnie._ "

She throws up her hands in peace. "Whoa, Dick, where's the venom coming from? If you play nice I'll give you a dollar."

"Psh," he snorts, bringing his beer up to his lips for another sip. "Already got like a million dollars."

She looks at him pityingly. "I hear they have tinfoil in the kitchen…"

"I _know_ , Veronica, I friggen live here, okay." He gets up anyway. And glances at Logan. And then starts walking toward the kitchen.

"You know my roommate is not a kitten, right?"

"I was sort of going for preschooler? but, kitten's appropriate too."

Logan laughs, nearly blurts out _heyveronicai'minyourpolisciclass_ , and buttons his lips. He look at her, really appreciating the closeness of her. She's fucking gorgeous, as always, and he wonders what her middle name is. _Shit._ That's not a good thought. That's a stalker thought.

"So, d'you want to…" she leads. "Head upstairs?"

He stands up automatically. "Shit, yeah, sorry. I was probably thinking about tinfoil."

She laughs back at him. "I'll see if I have any yarn in my bag."

He offers his hand in a rare show of PDA, and she takes it, which is mildly surprising. He's always liked her hands, and how small they are in his own. They make him feel larger, which is selfish, and more selfish when it comes to her hands on his dick, which helps him set the mood in his mind. Right. Hot sex coming up, not really time to compare dream journals or learn her middle name.

He drops her hand to open his bedroom door for her, still holding his bottled beer in the other. She walks in with familiarity (she's been walking in and out of this room for the past year on a semi-regular basis, and he's never been terribly inspired to move the bed or anything). Logan puts his beer down on his dresser as Veronica puts her purse on the floor. He raises his eyebrows at her.

"What, no yarn?"

"You really want to play with yarn?"

"Veronica. I love to craft."

She rolls her eyes at him, grinning, then crosses the room. She puts her arms around his waist, as familiar with his torso as she is with his room, and he tips his mouth down to kiss her. They're the same lips that were speaking so boldly in front of a lecture hall full of kids earlier that day, and that makes his chest swell with pride for some odd reason. But they're still kissing, until he does the stupid thing of talking.

"Hey," he says, a teasing note to his voice because he really was going to burst. "What classes are you taking this semester?"

She pulls back, a little dazed. "What?"

He gets the feeling he's asked something inappropriate, like what's your middle name.

"Oh, I just – I was wondering…what classes you're taking."

She's pausing, a faint level of latent horror in her eyes, and Logan's heart starts beating a little faster for a non-lascivious reason.

All of a sudden the fear drops, and instead it's replaced by a totally aloof expression, and she's snorting, twisting her fingers into the t-shirt at the small of his back.

"What do you care?"

It's such a dismissive little comment, and he realizes it simultaneously – that a) he really fucking _does_ care, and b) she really, fucking, doesn't.

And he has no time to consider this knowledge, that he fucking loves her, because she's kissing him impatiently, tugging at his clothes like she's got a sickness and the only cure is his dick, and fuck, fuck, fuck, he's going to table that whole terrifying idea for now because he's going to have sex with Veronica Mars and what the actual fuck is going on with his life.

She pulls back to yank his shirt over his head, and he has a moment while she's staring at his chest and taking off her own clothes to look at this tiny woman in front of him.

 _Fucking shit._ He fucking loves her, and he doesn't even know her fucking phone number. He doesn't know middle name.

But then of course, she's fucking naked, and he's not a fucking _monk_.

He kisses her ardently then, both hands cupping her jaw, and she kisses him back with her tongue right behind her lips so that whenever they kiss he can feel it there, like it's just ready and waiting to be brought into the ring.

* * *

 _With Parker gone it's not hard to get all the way to blackout drunk, particularly with odd feelings of misplaced guilt in his mind that he's not sure what to do with. He has erratic memories of pulling some stupid stunts with Dick that involve pissing off the balcony, pissing into snowbanks, and refereeing contests to see which of his friends could hold their balls in the snow for the longest (spoiler alert: Dick is probably not going to have children)._

 _He has no idea how or when he stumbles to bed, or whose bed it is._

 _It's pitch black in the room, like he's been blinded by bad decisions, and it's still fucking dark when he knows that someone is sucking on his dick, and it literally takes no effort on his part to think about Veronica, because everything that feels good – and this drunk, everything feels good – reminds him of her._

 _The sucking stops all of a sudden, and he opens his eyes to more blackness, trying to place where he is, when the hand around his cock gives a really vicious squeeze._

He opens his eyes. It's not dark where he is, because it's almost morning, and he knows this because there's a little bit of light in the room from the imminent sunrise, and it's illuminating Veronica's grin, and she takes the head of his cock between her lips again and sucks in that fucking way that usually makes his head explode, except half his head is still in Aspen –

 _He groans in high alto as pain spikes through him (he might not have children either, maybe), and he curls in on himself as if it will help._

He's actively trying to push out the memories, fingers carding through Veronica's hair instead as he holds it out of the way, and it's really fucking amazing that she's actually _smiling_ like he's doing her a _favor_ and _fuck_ , how fucking cruel it is that he can't stop the memory from completing itself –

 _He can't see her in the dark, but he feels her rise, and from above him he can hear her voice, and she is furious:_

 _"My name – is fucking Parker."_

Logan shouts a quick and adamant _fuck_ through his tight jaw, then grabs Veronica by her shoulders and pulls her up his body, not even pausing to kiss her as he flips her onto her back, tumbling with her, arm lunging for his bedside table to grab at the condom. She's writhing on his bed beneath him and twisting her own nipples, clearly, really fucking into this moment, and he can't even think he's so bleary with noise in his head so he just readies himself in front of her, prays for the fucking best, and shoves inside her because he needs it – he just needs it to be done.

He can't even move for a long, debilitating minute. Veronica wraps herself around him, arms around his shoulders and legs around his hips, so she's cocooning him in this really depressing really fucking perverse mothering gesture that he really shouldn't find comfort in, and he's such a bastard – he loves her – he _loves her_ – and he finds it the most comforting thing in the world at that moment of disorganized time.

He drops his head to her collarbone and finally moves, pulling out, pushing in, and that velvety heat is nearly letting him forget, and the way she's moaning so faintly in his ear is more or less driving away the memories, and Logan closes his eyes and increases his tempo, until all he can think about is Veronica, and her hips, and her thighs, and her breasts and her skin and her hair, and how she's doing that unconscious thing of lifting her chest and breathing hard through her mouth. And her orgasm is something he doesn't just want but he fucking needs it, he needs it more than anything, so he works them both towards a more punishing tempo, pace quickening with each thrust, and she's following along so he really starts slamming into her, a heavy staccato meant just for fucking her, and her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers twist into his hair and she's panting in time with his assault, then she's whispering _yes, more, fuck, more_ , and he groans, deep in his throat, and the fact that his body is moving at all becomes a blur of wild sensation until he can feel her muscles tense around his dick. She twists her fingers in his hair so hard, and he's slamming into her maybe five, maybe eight, maybe twenty more times before it all just leaves him in this amazing, euphoric, implosion and lightness.

And he might fucking cry when he opens his eyes – he might actually fucking do it – because he loves this girl in front of him, and she doesn't love him, and there's not a fucking thing he can do about it.

He wishes he had told Parker no.

* * *

He's watching her tug on her jeans when he thinks about saying something.

Something like, "Hey, I love you," sounds too dramatic, but it seems stupid to just let her go with this knowledge stuck in his throat.

"D'you want to get breakfast?" he asks, and she pauses enough while buttoning her jeans to stare blankly into space and then huff out some laughter.

"Since when do we do brunch?"

"Since you accidentally stayed the night."

She looks up at him then, her eyes dark in the sunrise. "Emphasis on accidentally."

"Hey, I'm not complaining."

She doesn't add anything else to the conversation, just keeps getting ready, but Logan might have ADD so he gets up out of bed and crosses to her, grabbing at her wrists just in case she didn't notice he was heading straight for her, and he looks at the top of her head until she looks back up at him. He wants to insist that they get some eggs or something, but her expression looks like burnt toast, all annoyed at having been cooked to begin with, so Logan pulls back.

It's such an odd fucking exchange, so innately awkward, and he totally deserves it when she leaves without rectifying the stilted mood.

He sits at his desk for awhile then, watching out the window while she crosses under the dormant cherry blossoms toward her dorm, and he's totally fucking naked but nobody cares. He's angry that he does, care, and then angry that he hasn't tried harder to make _her_ care, and then he fucking hates Veronica Mars for not _letting_ him care, and then he mostly just feels like a selfish, psychotic, asshole, unworthy of any of it.

He wonders what he's going to do when he sees her in class tomorrow. He wonders whether she'll even notice that he's there. He tells himself that if she ever does notice him he'll tell her and then – _he pictures carrying her books, and studying together, and sitting next to her in the third row_ – getting eggs and toast before class or eggs and toast after. Logan smiles.

Yeah, he thinks. Everything will be okay.

It's…it's enough to look forward to.


	3. Atomic Bombs for Fish in a Barrel, part1

**Atomic Bombs for Fish in a Barrel  
by AliLamba  
rated oh no  
notes** this was a bonus/deleted scene that got tacked on to the end over at AO3. but a smart person pointed out that it bridged the gap between 2 and 3 nicely, so it gets posted here and you're stuck with it. you're stuck with iiiiitttt.

* * *

"So…what do you want to play tonight?"

Veronica is curled up on her twin mattress, just all curled up tight like a ball, quilt around her shoulders and fuzzy pajama pants on. She can't remember a time outside of final's week when she's ever been dressed like this at 9 o'clock on a Friday night – no, that's a lie. _Her friends_ can't remember a time when she's been dressed like this at 9 o'clock on a Friday night. Veronica is too busy trying not to think about anything.

"What Mac? Sorry."

Mac rolls her eyes, and for once Veronica doesn't miss it.

"Are Piz and Wallace coming over?"

Mac turns back to her laptop. "No, they had to, uh, make an excuse."

Veronica forces a dead expression, and Mac spins back around.

"Oh did I say that out loud? I think I was supposed to say they had something really important to do instead. Family emergency. Nuclear missile crisis. Uh. Wallace gave birth?"

"To what, _lies?_ "

"I think we were going to go with puppies."

Veronica really resents the laughter threatening the corner of her mouth. She looks down at her bed.

"I'm being a really awful friend, aren't I."

She can hear Mac stand up and sigh, cross over to her bed. Sit down. Veronica looks up.

"You're only an awful friend if you try to make us play Scrabble one more god-damn time." It makes Veronica's bad mood crack. A little. "Seriously, no one cares enough about triple word scores. And it sucks when you don't laugh when we make shit up."

"You guys said you looked up penixes."

"Okay, the fact that you're still thinking about that is slightly worrying."

Veronica smiles.

"Veronica, you know we love you right?" _Oh no_ , it's that word again, Veronica's good mood evaporates. "But seriously, what the fuck? Did Logan beat you or something?"

 _No – no, not even close – he would never – I'm the worst –_

There is a pounding at the door.

Both girls' gaze snap up.

" _Veronica!_ "

 _Oh no._

Veronica's eyes go wide. Her heartrate spikes. No, her heart is in her throat, which makes it even worse.

"Is that – is that _Logan?_ "

Veronica can't speak; she's gone mute, she's gone paralyzed, she's too overwhelmed to know what to do. More pounding.

" _Veronica I know you're in there!_ "

" _Holy shit_ he _did_ beat you."

"No," she whispers.

"I'm calling the cops."

"No!"

There's a silent moment. More pounding.

"Veronica what the hell is going on?"

She gives up, huffs, throws off the blanket, stands. Avoids Mac's look of confusion as she crosses to their door, anxiety etching her own face. She pulls the door open and the person she's been avoiding – in person, in her head, wherever – is suddenly right in front of her.

"What do you want, Logan."

His expression is grim when he sizes her up, then pushes past her, and it's so absolutely one hundred percent humiliating that her belly feels a thrill at the limited stupid contact.

"You weren't there."

She stares at him then, crossing her arms over her chest, door still open as if he's going to suddenly waltz back out.

"I wasn't lots of places. Care to be more specific? The moon? The MOMA? The tragedy of Pompeii?"

"You know where."

Veronica's shoulders wilt. The bright salmon-colored flyer flits past her mind's eye. _Sigma Tau Lobster Fest._ And in small letters near the bottom: _don't bring your shellfish allergy_ _._

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Logan looks at her plaintively. He glances at Mac. Mac still looks totally lost.

"Veronica," he starts to say, taking a step toward her. Veronica takes a step back, and he stops. He looks again at Mac.

"Oh shit you know what?" Mac is suddenly saying. "I totally forgot – my friend is giving birth tonight and I was totally supposed to be there."

" _Mac_ – "

Her friend stops to look at her, in the middle of grabbing her backpack. Mac's probably going to want to join Wallace and Piz for free seafood, but she's still willing to be a good friend, if she has to. She's not an awful person.

Veronica looks at her helplessly. She looks helplessly at Logan.

"It's fine." She sighs. "It's fine. You can go."

Mac looks at her penetratingly then, really trying to get a grip on what's going on. They've all been far too kind to her these last few weeks, and Veronica waves her out a bit more emphatically. _Shoo, shoo._

Mac closes the door behind her after a last _call me and I come back with a knife_ sort of look, and the room is disgustingly quiet. Veronica doesn't want to be the first to speak. She doesn't want to speak at all, she wants to go back to inertia, to huddled up on her bed thinking/not thinking. And Logan's making that too damn difficult _without_ suddenly being around.

"What do you want, Logan?"

He moves then, makes noise as he does so, crossing into her field of vision at a six-foot radius.

"You're avoiding me."

"Not successfully."

He frowns.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

She holds his gaze for just a moment too long.

"You know why."

His frown deepens, like, he does know, he knows that this is what he was afraid of.

"Veronica…"

She doesn't like it when he says her name anymore. She doesn't like any of it.

"No, Logan, jesus christ, it really shouldn't be any more difficult to break up with someone you know?"

She makes the mistake of looking at him, at his cranky expression, and it's such a departure from when she saw him last – _smiling so optimistically in the morning light, waving politely at Mac, nearly blowing Veronica a kiss…_

"I didn't think there was anything to _break up_ with."

He works his jaw.

"No, you know what?" he continues, frustration radiating off his tense shoulders. "That's bullshit. You want to break up with me fine, but you at least have to give me something to break up _with_."

"What the hell are you talking about."

"Get dressed."

"I am dressed. What? _No_. What?"

"I'm taking you to fucking Red Lobster."

She looks at him then, unabashedly shocked and confused, a curl to her dropped lip and open horror in her gaze.

"You are not."

"I am. Whether you're dressed like that or not."

"Logan I believe that's called kidnapping?"

"Yeah well I'm going to call it a date. Now are you going to get changed or not?"

She considers it then, really considers the idea of making him take her out to a restaurant while she's not wearing a bra and hasn't brushed her teeth and she's still wearing fuzzy pajamas with little eggs and toast all over them. She crosses her arms over her chest she's considering it so seriously. But then he's also holding his ground, just as serious to take her, and she calls chicken before he does.

" _Ugh_ , fine!" She throws up her arms. "You can wait outside in the hall."

He smirks. "Veronica, come on. It's not like I've never seen you naked."

A flush creeps up on her then, starting at her neck and moving right up her face.

"Yeah, well, technically we weren't dating then, so – " she points emphatically, " _out_ , stranger."

It's kudos to him that he actually does, rolling his eyes in this over-affected sort of way, pretending to open the door only once – well, twice – on her as she frowns to make sure it's closed securely after him.

A very petulant part of her brain considers locking it behind him and sweating him out – because, oh that would just feel so good to his smug little attitude – but then she remembers that she doesn't have an en-suite bathroom like Logan does, and that eventually she'll have to eat, and that Logan could probably outlast her in the hall. She wouldn't put it past him to have a granola bar in his pocket.

So she goes about getting ready, vacillating between normal effort, subpar effort, and actually trying to look nice. She ends up with a really weird look, if she's honest. Tank top over a sports bra, short skirt over flip-flops. Nothing matches in color or style. She's a mess. She grabs a sweater and her purse and gives up on the rest.

"I'm ready," she announces, opening her door. Logan looks up expectantly, eyes her from top to bottom. " _But –_ " she adds, finger in the air. "With a caveat. You get _one hour_ , and then I'm calling the cops."

"Two."

" _One_."

"Twenty."

She almost laughs. "One, Logan!"

He rolls his eyes. Leans off the wall and reaches for her hand. She flinches, he grabs for it anyway.

"We're not dating, remember?"

"I thought you said we weren't broken up."

"Oh this is not going to go well."

* * *

She lets him hold her hand all the way to the car, feeling pretty surly about it, even surlier when Logan walks up to a big black fancy SUV and unlocks it with a key fob.

"Oh, of _course_ you drive a Range Rover."

He grins and opens her car door for her. "You should've seen the car I had in high school."

"Was it _even_ more obnoxious than this?"

"Oh. Very."

He looks pretty proud of that fact, and Veronica makes a sound through her teeth about it. She hops in and buckles her seatbelt, ready to go by the time Logan is in the driver's seat turning on the engine. She cuts him a glance from the corner of her eye.

"Are you really taking me to Red Lobster?"

"Of course."

It shuts her up, because it's totally embarrassing to have your words thrown back at you, totally embarrassing to have Logan pick up on this flippant joke she made and hold on to it in this adoring sort of way, in a way that makes her think the he's remembered almost everything she's said, because he…because he _cares_ about her, and thinks she's great.

 _It means that I sort of love you._

She turns away from Logan then, stares instead out her window into the night, nearly squirming with shame.

They drive in silence and Logan seems far too at ease with everything, and that is so miserable after awhile when she seems to be in so much turmoil about the whole thing. She honestly thinks that if she knew how to tuck and roll out of a moving car she'd try to attempt it. By the time they're in the parking lot she's actively distressed.

"So?"

His leading question draws her attention back to him, back to the way he's gesturing with the car keys at the red neon sign like it's lit just for them. She's honestly a little upset it's still open, but, she figures, Friday nights in a college town must make for extended hours. Maybe it's shrimp week. _Ugh, I'm doing it too._

"Logan," she starts, no clue whatsoever in how she wants to finish it. She looks into his eyes. She looks away. "I don't want to go in."

"Hey you promised me a date – "

"I didn't promise you anything, Logan!"

He's silent for a beat. Lost with her mood. "What? Veronica – "

"No," she starts, shaking her head. She fingers the door lock/unlock button. "Logan…you…I…I-I mean…"

"I'm pretty sure that's how Shakespeare started all his sonnets," he murmurs under his breath.

Under normal circumstances she would grin at him, in others she might laugh. But her laughing muscles are all twisted up into knots just then, and she doesn't have it in her to smile.

She looks at him, the car dark save for the neon through the windshield.

"Why are we here?" she whispers, the car too quiet.

He takes a deep breath.

"You know why."

"I really don't."

"Because I love you."

Her heart twists ungraciously, she can't breathe for a moment. It's still so terrifying to hear him say it, and her brows bunch together unhelpfully.

"Then why didn't you ever give me your number? Ever? Why didn't you push for it? You say you love me – "

"Veronica."

It's meant to make her stop talking, and she does.

"I wanted to. I realized I wanted to a long time ago. But – you didn't want it. I kept asking and you didn't change your mind. And so I…and so I stop asking if you would take it."

She doesn't buy it. She doesn't _remember_ it. She doesn't like _it_ at all. Tears are swimming around the corners of her eyes and she has no _fucking_ idea why.

"Then why even keep seeing me at all? Why even – " she can't finish it. _Why keep fucking me? Why keep talking to me?_

"Are you serious?" he asks, in this light, _how obtuse can you be_ sort of way. She only makes eye contact because it's what she deserves.

"That is so dumb," she whispers, and she can't look at him anymore. She'll look anywhere else in the car, anywhere else in the world. "You're so dumb," she adds, because she legitimately hates herself.

She hears his seatbelt unbuckle and then feels when he unbuckles her own, and he does this awful, leaning over the armrest thing to wrap his arms around her. It's the absolute _last_ thing he should do, because she finally starts crying, starts crying in the way she has been avoiding for weeks, weeks that she knew that he loved her, weeks that she knew she didn't love him back, was pretty sure she couldn't love him back, weeks that their relationship thing was over, no matter how much that sucked.

"I don't – I don't," she starts to hiccup. "I _don't love you, Logan_ ," she sobs, finally breaking down, breaking down in this really awful way that makes her glad she didn't wear make-up, because it would be getting all over his shirt.

"Veronica," he starts, annoyed, and she doesn't know why he's annoyed so she looks up at him, and he's looking over his shoulder, and then he's climbing into the backseat and she's sniffling, watching him, and he holds out a hand for her to join him back there. Her lower lip quivers, she wants to say no, and then Logan is making a little annoyed noise through his teeth and reaching for her, drawing her into the backseat, and it only makes her cry harder because she's a bitch and he's probably not, and then she's curled up on his lap.

He's petting her hair in this really nice way. Tears are still falling down her cheeks.

"You don't have to love me," he says. Her chin wobbles. She cries harder for a second. "Is that why you've been avoiding me?"

He pulls back, trying to see her face, and she can't make eye contact. He puts a knuckle under her chin and tilts it up, and she can still only barely look at him, so she shrugs one shoulder.

"Veronica, you don't have to love me."

She finally catches his gaze.

"I don't?"

"No – well – okay, so it would suck if you didn't, because uh, I sort of already shot my wad on that one – " She grimaces. _Crude_. "All I'm saying is, that, I dunno, maybe we should go out to dinner sometimes."

"See?" she says, poking him in the chest while fresh tears well around her eyes. "That! That's what I'm afraid of!"

"What, eating?"

"Y—" she sputters. "Yes!" She feels kind of dumb. "You know what I mean."

"Why the hell would you be worried about eating?"

She looks into his eyes, those eyes she really likes, the ones that make her warm all over when they look at her just so.

"You don't want to do this," she says, voice quiet.

"I don't?"

"No! You don't want to – you don't want to have to deal with my periods, or, or get my hair in your shower drain. You don't want to say goodnight to Mac and me both!"

"Oh please, keep going, this sounds exactly like all there is to a relationship."

She snorts, almost smiles. "I'm serious."

"I can tell."

"Logan, things were going well. Right?" He doesn't quite nod, just looking at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "And, and…I'm awful. You have to know how awful I am. I'm bitchy and I only have like three friends and I – you don't even _know_ what I was like in high school, because, trust me, I was not the homecoming queen – "

"Veronica," he stops her, leaning forward, kissing her lightly on the lips. "Last time I checked you didn't have to be homecoming queen to get laid."

She mumbles something under her breath. Something that sounds a lot like _bet you were homecoming queen._

"Let me get this straight."

She picks at the fabric of her skirt, doesn't want to move, desperately wants to move.

"You stopped trying to run into me because you didn't love me."

She looks up, feeling a little braver. He catches her gaze and releases a breath through his teeth.

"Fine, whatever, you don't love me, you thought we couldn't keep doing what we were doing, so you became a hermit."

Her jaw drops open, indignant, on the cusp of denying him. "I did not!" She goes silent. _Penixes is not a word._ "Fine. Whatever."

"And you don't want to start a relationship because you don't think I'd like you?"

"Well when you put it like that!" she starts to complain. She wants to finish with, _it doesn't make any sense_ , but, that's exactly _why_ she'd spent so much time inside on Friday nights. It was a lot to think about.

Logan is looking outside the front windshield, as if he'll understand her better out there. She watches him roll his eyes, shake his head a little, and then turn back toward her.

"Okay, whatever," Logan starts, one hand on her hip. "So I think we've done a pretty good job of talking about the _bad things_ that can come of a relationship." Her stomach is squirming. "So, okay, not to play devil's advocate or anything here, but I'm pretty sure that sometimes, there are advantages to making this more of like a real, normal-people thing."

She's clearly dubious. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he starts, hand outside her hip starting to move just a little. "Like – well, cheddar bay biscuits, obviously,"

" _Obviously_ ," she inserts. "Especially because they don't just hand those out to single people."

"Yeah pretty sure I read that somewhere," he muses. "But then there's also – I mean, having another contact on your phone, sometimes another Facebook friend…another person's yearbook picture you get to mock."

"Joke's on you I always looked fabulous."

"I don't doubt it for a second."

 _Darn. Backfired_.

"There's also the chance for a new person to meet your parents," She chokes on nothing. "Someone else to potentially bail you out of jail – "

"Why, are you planning on committing any crimes?"

She shouldn't have asked, because she can see by the curve of his smile that he's thinking crude thoughts, so she rolls her eyes.

"Okay, well, what about morning sex." He leans closer, brushes hair behind her ear, thumbs her earlobe in this glancing sort of way that seems to awaken some craven part of her. "I'm pretty good at morning sex."

"Ugh, _morning breath_. See? That's another thing."

"I bet your morning breath tastes like marshmallows."

"Oh – it doesn't."

He laughs. Leans even closer. "I'm not sure you're an impartial judge on the subject." It's another leading little comment, supposed to be followed up with _I should probably find out for myself_ , and he's such a jerk for not just saying that bit out loud. Such a jerk for a lot of reasons.

"Logan – " she starts to say, again giving up before she's even got going.

"Nothing big then."

She looks at him.

"We don't have to do sleepovers or lobster right off the bat. But we could exchange numbers. Try texting."

"Texting?"

"Yeah I just figured out the winky face. I need someone to try it out on."

She almost laughs then. She really does. She pulls the winky face instead, and Logan laughs.

"Yeah, but just – " he tilts her head sideways. "Yeah. I want to be able to picture this."

She punches him lightly in the ribs.

He grins, catches her wrist, tugs on her waist, and then he's kissing her. She tries to make a noise to stop him, tries to kick her brain into danger gear, tries to activate that damn _fight or flight_ reflex, but…it's…

It's just him, damnit, he must have qualified in the Olympic trials or something, because he's just so god damn good at this, the whole kissing thing. He was probably disqualified for using performance enhancing drugs he's so good at it, so it's really cheating, that she opens her mouth for him too quickly, that he deepens the kiss so easily, that he's making little circles on her back that make her sweater ride up.

And it's just, they fall into it so easily it's like they're only made to do one thing – fuck each other senseless – because before she even knows what's happening she's trying to yank his shirt off and her sweater's on the floor and it's not until the red neon lights go off that she realizes that she's in a fucking _parking lot_ – and – they stare at each other in the sudden darkness, all _do you want to stop? No I don't want to stop either_ – because then they're kissing each other again, and they're both moaning into each other's mouths like some fucked up mouth to mouth resuscitation that would definitely _not_ work in a life or death situation.

And Logan's tugging at his own shorts, trying to get them off, and it would be so damn presumptuous of him if she weren't trying to pull off her own underwear in this confined space, and their knees and ankles were getting in the way of them getting more naked, until she's swearing and he's laughing and then they're kissing again, kissing until the laughter's all gone, kissing until she feels warm molten heat all over, kissing until she can feel his fingers skimming through her pubic hair.

"Oh, fuck, Logan," she whispers, feeling his fingers glance through her sex and its downright excessive lubrication.

"I'm going to fuck you now, Veronica," he whispers back, and hearing him say it out loud sends an electric arrow of pleasure right down her spine. She can hear the rip of foil in the recesses of her mind, too focused on other things to really appreciate that he had a condom on hand, "And then you're going to give me your number. Okay?"

She nods emphatically, nearly about to impale herself on him, condom or no, because he's right fucking there, and she's hovering right over his lap, hands on the seatback, _aching_ for release. "Okay," he whispers, his hands testing her wetness again, a hiss through his teeth, then his hands are on her hips, and…she sinks, he guides, and… _yes_.

 _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._ She sits there for a moment, savoring the high of him inside of her, savoring how much she's missed it. She'd gone an entire summer without being fucked, well, two, if she had time or mental capacity to think about it just then, but weeks without Logan when she could've had him the whole time seems harder, in retrospect, because – well – because of this.

She leans back in the seat, away from his chest, tilting the angle of their bodies. In the limited light she can see his face, his dropped bottom lip, his heady gaze, and she rises, just enough, because she can feel the length of him inside of her, knows it well enough already. She falls, and rises, rises and falls, and fuck if it isn't going to be the end of her, this feeling.

Why, oh why, was she such a fucking idiot. She would do anything not to go without this again, the way he looks at her, the way she feels when they're connected, it's just, it's a crime, what she wants to do to him, what he does to her. She rides him more, lifting and sinking, grabbing his shoulder with one hand to keep herself from falling, and Logan's, his breath is going in puffs now, his brow creasing in the way that lets her know he's close, but – fuck him, she's closer, and if he doesn't get off soon then she's going to leave without him – Veronica bites her lower lip and squeezes her hips around him, lets the hand not being useful for their angle drop behind her back. Logan pushes up her tank top and shoves up her sports bra, exposing her breasts, and she loves that he's naked and that she's fucking not, loves that her skirt makes this feel so wanton, and she really digs her teeth into her lip because she's got like five seconds left in her before she combusts, so her fingers reach for Logan's thighs, navigates upward, until her fingertips reach his testicles, and she caresses them cautiously, probing his expression for clues. And he can feel her fingers, she knows, because his mouth really drops open all of a sudden, so much more pleasure than pain, and he grabs her hips with both hands, holds her above him, and _slams_ inside of her. And their angle is fucked _up_ because he's slamming _right into her g-spot_ , and then he does it _again_ , and _again_ – and she goes with a loud crack of some noise from her throat. She goes and he follows, spiraling, tumbling like leaves from dead trees in a fucking tornado.

She'll leave the metaphors to Shakespeare.

They both tumble back to reality in the confines of his stupidly extravagant car. She leans forward, dropping against his chest, and his arms flop around her, a limp embrace.

"You can't – " he's suddenly saying. "You can't leave me again."

Veronica doesn't know how to respond to that. She holds her head against his shoulder, tries to force a smile it's hard to feel with other emotions clawing for dominance, devotion among them.

"A deal's a deal," she whispers, kissing his skin, before grinning. "442-555-1096."

It wouldn't be so cute if he didn't start repeating it immediately, fervently, as if he'll actually memorize it in an instant. She bites his shoulder. "I'll put it in your phone, you goon."

"442-555-1096," he parrots, probably just to annoy her. She grins. Looks around the car.

"I may have to change my opinion about this car," she murmurs. "We might have just become friends."

Logan laughs a little. Squeezes her tight. Kisses her hair to ease the blow of lifting her hips off of him. She pulls back with a sigh, falling into the corner of the bench, watching unabashedly as Logan cleans up and pulls his pants back on. She's still looking around the car, trying to figure things out.

"So this is, what, rich parents?"

He raises an eyebrow at her, not at the point of putting on his shirt yet.

"My dad's a movie star."

Her eyes might literally bug.

" _Seriously?_ "

"Seriously?" he mimics. "You seriously didn't know?"

She doesn't answer him, staring at his face like it'll provide some clue to the truth. She decides she doesn't care who his father is.

"Yeah, well, my dad's a cop, so."

He grins at her. "Don't try to show off or anything," he murmurs, tilting himself over her body, kissing her exposed sternum. She giggles and pulls down her shirt, and Logan pulls his head up with a dumb little pout. She curls her finger around his ear, grinning at his cuteness.

"This changes everything, you know."

"What, my dad being a movie star? That's pretty old news – "

"No," she interrupts, drawing her finger down his jaw, grabbing his chin between thumb and forefinger. " _This_ , this whole…Red Lobster thing."

He leans forward, breaking her hold, and kisses her again.

"I'm looking forward to it."


	4. Atomic Bombs for Fish in a Barrel, part2

**Atomic Bombs for Fish in a Barrel part one now part two  
by **AliLamba **  
rated** bad **  
notes** the end, the end, the monkey hugging end.

* * *

This was, really, just a stunningly awful idea.

Veronica slides her napkin across her lips, and offers an excuse to go to the bathroom. Her date smiles kindly (he is a pretty nice guy), and she stands, navigating around other small tables of people as she heads to the back.

She doesn't have to pee, which is stupid, so she makes herself pee anyway as if it'll assuage her guilt. She still ends up looking in the mirror, still feels like a raging bitch.

It was Mac's stupid idea, really. It's Mac's stupid friend, but even more stupid is that she agreed to the date in the first place. Veronica exhales loudly and combs her fingers through her hair. Well, she's not going to order dessert, and maybe that'll send a clear enough message. Her reflection stares back at her. She worries her lip, wondering if she should text someone, make up some excuse to leave sooner. _No._ This was a stupid idea that she agreed to, and she deserves the experience of sitting across from someone knowing she has no interest in them whatsoever, knowing that she's being a bitch, and that she's a mean human being, deep down.

So she fixes her lip gloss a little (as if it'll help), straightens her skirt, and heads back out to dinner with her date.

"Sorry Duncan, you were saying?"

* * *

She's walking back toward her dorm, staring at her shoes as she doesn't so much as walk but amble, unsure if she's delaying the journey or just beginning a walkabout. She doesn't quite feel like answering to Mac's third degree about how it went, mostly because she's not quite sure herself. Duncan had been polite even in goodbye. He was a good reminder that there were other people in the world, which was sort the whole point. People who shared her interests, had some modicum of intellect and ambition; people who were polite and ordered wine and held out chairs for her in restaurants.

So it should come as more of a surprise, when she finds herself outside of Sigma Tau, staring up at the light on in Logan's room, trying to decide if she wants to throw a pebble or a boulder.

In the end it's neither. She pulls out her phone and slides open the keypad.

 _Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo_

She's grinning a little to herself, wondering how long to wait before she leaves, when Logan's window slides open with an audible swish, and then Logan is shouting out of it into the night.

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks!"

Veronica holds up her hand. "It's my cellphone."

"It is the east, and Veronica Mars is the sun."

"I was trying to be stealthy."

"Yeah well come on up, Romeo. Door's unlocked."

She grins heartily, thinking that maybe Romeo and Juliet could've used a door if they really wanted to, might've avoided the whole dramatically ironic suicide thing if they'd just had texting. _She's not going to tell him._ She passes a decent number of people as she goes, but she's too single-minded to really acknowledge any of them, particularly as they're mostly playing video games, and most don't know her name. _She's definitely not going to tell him._ Logan's door is open for her as she gets close to it, and the lightness in her chest is dimming somewhat as she steps inside and closes it with her body, resting against it as she looks at Logan across the room.

He's sitting at his desk, some amount of schoolwork on the surface in front of him. He looks like he should be wearing glasses, and that mental image is almost too cute to bear. _I'm not going to tell him._

"You look nice."

She grins, flushing, image of cute Logan in glasses still in her head. _Don't do it. Don't tell him._ "I know. It's my curse. So much for setting that witch on fire."

"At least you chose a good curse."

Her grin broadens and she looks down at her shoes. Then she bites the inside of her cheek. She looks up at him. Then she feels vulnerable so far away, so she walks across the room and sits on his lap, resting her cheek on his hair.

"I went on a date tonight."

Logan's thumb, brushing over the hem of her skirt, stills. Just for a moment. Then it starts again, all forced nonchalance.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she sighs. "It went great."

"Clearly, because: evidence."

He slips his thumb under the hem just for show.

 _I'm not going to tell him._

She pulls back enough so that he turns to look at her. She searches his eyes for something then, some sort of emotion or something, but she gives up looking for the thing she couldn't name to begin with and kisses him, long and deep, her lip gloss smudging in a way that she's never really cared about with him. It's so stupid, that she loves him.

It's even stupider that she can't come out and say it, because this knowledge has been living in her brain for a week, and it was only with terrified conversation and half a bottle of wine with Mac last weekend that she admitted it out loud at all, and together they made a plan to set Veronica up on some dates because something clearly had to be wrong with her – Logan was still, well, Logan – and there were actual humans in the world who she could probably love more.

And the thing is – she went on one date – fucking _one_ , and that was it. She doesn't want to go on anymore. She wants to go out to dinner with Logan, and have him make fart jokes or something, and that's – that's just the fucking worst because she loves him so much.

Veronica kisses Logan with more emphasis, because he is responding so well, hand now on the small of her waist as he really breathes into the kiss, opening her lips, slipping his tongue against hers. The quickening between her hips is already there, and she's ready for it, has been waiting for it, ever since Duncan was asking if she wanted red or white, even as Duncan revealed he didn't really like video games, even when Duncan revealed his major was fucking _finance_.

There's something wrong with her, she knows, but fuck if it's going to get in the way of her intentions right now, and Veronica twists in Logan's lap, puts a heel on the floor so she can swing her leg over his lap, and Logan is groaning into her throat now, and that's fucking amazing, even better when her skirt bunches quickly above her hips and Logan pulls her down by her waist, so she brushes up against his erection.

She releases Logan's lips with a warm hard exhale, and she leans back a little, arms around his neck in a loose embrace, as she really grinds down on him, turning her hips, not pressing too hard but enough so that he's moaning again, and then he's palming her breast through her clothes, and it's such a fucking turn on how good this feels, how amazing she feels doing it, and when Logan starts unbuttoning her blouse with deft fingers she gets another surge of heat because _fuck yes_.

Logan's got her blouse open and he ducks his head to suck on her skin, and Veronica slides her fingers into his hair to hold him to her, curling her shoulders around his head as his mouth keeps her warm. She knows how wet she is, and she sinks onto Logan's lap, so he's groaning into her skin and it's reverberating through her flesh and she bites her lip to keep from echoing him. Logan's hand grips her thigh then digs between their bodies, and she feels his fingers on her underwear and then his fingers at her opening, and his _fuck, Veronica_ exhale is enough to confirm how wet she is, especially as Logan slides his fingers up and down her labia, and then he sinks his fingers inside of her.

She's selfish and needy, and when Logan starts pulling at her, tugging at the strings that hold her together, she doesn't stop or try to move on to full fucking. She wants to get off on his hands because it's dirty and it's what she deserves, for being a bitch, and being a jerk, and before she knows it she's biting her lip and fisting Logan's shirt in her hands and she's fucking _bouncing_ on his lap, his fingers inside of her, his mouth on her breast, and it's such a fucking _relief_ when she comes, it's so fucking _earned_ , and it takes a whole long moment to realize what she's saying into his hair because she's not really _thinking_ , and what sane person would be thinking _I love you I love you I love you_ while humping someone's fucking _hand._

Shame and embarrassment sweep through her, and she tries to pull away, but Logan's got her pinned in all the worst ways and he holds her to him, kissing her neck, saying something into it, and then his arms are around her back and he's lifting her up with him while he stands, and moves towards the bed.

She squeezes her eyes shut, clinging to him like a barnacle, praying that she hasn't said something foolish, praying that it was all in her head.

Logan drops her onto his bed. And when he doesn't jump in after her she opens her eyes, and stares up at him, and his expression is so impassive.

"You love me," he reiterates, and Veronica feels more ashamed at saying it out loud than she had orgasming in his lap.

"I don't want to talk about it." She makes a move to roll over, but he pins her hip to the mattress. Her skirt is still trussed up around her waist. Her blouse is still open over her disheveled bra.

"Oh no no no," he says, and there's a teasing note to his voice that brings about such a welcome amount of levity. "Sorry Romeo, we're talking about this."

"I don't want to talk about it," she says, sitting up, reaching for his belt buckle, and Logan pulls his hips away.

" _Romeo_ ," he chides, gentle.

"Logan," she mimics, and he grins.

"You love me."

She licks her lips. Looks toward the door, wonders if it's even locked.

"I was under the influence."

"You were cumming in my lap."

She flushes.

"Yeah well it doesn't have to happen again," she tries to stand, and again he pins her.

"It can happen every day of the week for all I care," and she looks up at him, and he's grinning down at her, and then he plants a soft kiss on her lips. He kisses her again, and then again, and then he really kisses her, pushes her back onto the duvet cover, climbs over her so he's straddling _her_ now, and he pulls her arms above her head and pins her before he pulls back.

"Is this – are you seriously restraining me? Is that what's going on?"

"I really need to invest in some handcuffs."

"You need to invest in a good lawyer, Logan, this is – oh my god. Let me go."

"I want you to talk to me. And if you really meant that you'd knee me in the balls."

She tries to push her thigh into his crotch, tries to look threatening, and Logan laughs in this surrendering way, letting her go, rolling to the side. Veronica sits up and grins.

"Dumbass."

He looks up at her from the bed, all warm affection in his gaze.

They've been playing it slow, these past few weeks, ever since, well…everything changed so irrevocably. At first she wasn't able to offer more than radio silence and staying in on Friday nights. But then he showed up at her door, demanding a chance to take her to Red Lobster, and how does a girl say no to that kind of romance? No, more importantly, how does a girl go from crying in the parking lot of a national restaurant food chain to having sex in the backseat?

She's looking down at him, willing herself not to tell him, not to tell him what she's known for forever, has only been able to admit for seven days. Logan has imploded her life with the ease of someone using disproportionate force since day one, and her heart has disproportionately grown to accept him.

So it is suddenly the easiest thing in the world to open her mouth, and to just…tell him.

"I love you."

Logan's grin stretches into a legitimate smile, warm affection into genuine fucking… _love_. It's awful, it's too much, and she can barely look at it. She doesn't want to be in love with Logan Echolls, yet she is, and she's so consumed with the love that she hardly knows when it started or when it ended up eating her alive. But she does, love him, and it's unfair for him not to know it.

Logan sits up on the bed, tucks hair behind her ear. "I love you too," he says, and she doesn't know why it sounds like a vow.

* * *

"Tell me again why we're doing this?"

It's a few weeks later, and Logan is being a very good boyfriend.

"Because you need a reason to go to the gym."

"I do have a reason to go to the gym."

Logan slides his hand to her ass, smacks it lightly with his palm.

"What, to have a butt like mine?" she grins, coy.

Logan bites his lower lip, squeezes her asscheek just a little before moving his hand to a more respectable position given the whole walking around on a sidewalk in public thing.

Veronica slides her hand around his waist and snuggles close.

She looks up at him. Still has the impression he's not all there, like he doesn't _want_ to meet her friends in an official capacity, like he's doing this for _her_. It's a slightly worrying thought. She tries out a smile.

"It's going to be so great. We've never finished one before."

Logan inhales deeply.

"Oh good. Then I am most definitely going to the gym after."

It's only another block, and then Logan's opening the door for her, and she's walking into the fluorescent lighting of Ben & Jerry's, spying the group easily near the back.

"Girlfriends!" she cheers, relishing the way they all jump up to greet her.

"Thank god, girl, I'm _starving_ ," Wallace moans, and Piz nods.

"I was seriously about to eat my spoon."

"C'mon guys, Thanksgiving was, like, two days ago."

"How did it go?" Mac interrupts, immediately business. "Did your dad _actually_ have a coronary when he saw Logan or was it just like, an outpatient thing."

"Totally outpatient. Only had to perform CPR for like, ten minutes. Didn't even call 911."

Piz laughs. Veronica looks over her shoulder.

"Logan, you coming or what?"

He's still a few feet away, but when he realizes everyone's looking at him, he holds out his hands a little. It's so pathetically cute, how nervous he is (nervous, he's _nervous_ ), considering the whole _I'm in love with you_ thing.

"Girlfriends?"

Veronica and her friends share a look. She nods.

And they all pile into a dorky group hug.

"Logan, my friend," Wallace starts, looking too somber for someone holding a bright pink spoon. "I think we're going to like having you around."

"Mostly because you might actually hang out now for any length of time."

"What are you talking about?" Veronica is pulling away, shrugging out of her coat, rolling up her sleeves to get ready for their task.

Piz takes his seat, selecting his spoon. "Remember that time we were all sitting around, talking about Super Smash Bros? No, of course you don't, because you were playing footsie with Logan under the coffee table thinking no one else would notice."

"That _did not_ happen."

" _Oh yeah_ , I remember," Logan interjects, sitting down himself, holding his pink spoon. "Because you guys were trying to tell me that Kirby wasn't the only good character."

" _Oh my god,_ " Wallace is groaning, like he's really excited to have this discussion later.

"Or wait," Mac is adding, grinning. "How about the time Logan and I were talking about _Moby Dick_ for an _entire_ semester because we were both in English 315."

"I didn't know you had a class together!"

Mac rolls her eyes, and Logan offers an unhelpful shrug when probed for information with eye contact.

"You didn't ask. And we _did_ talk about it in front of you all the time."

"Granted, he wasn't wearing a shirt most of that time," Piz adds, unhelpful.

Mac takes her spoon out of her mouth. "Not that the rest of _us_ cared. The rest of _us_ could actually hold a conversation with Logan that didn't involve getting into his pants."

Veronica looks around the table, cheeks flushed and mouth hanging open. She's realizing not for the first time that she's missed a lot of things, is maybe not so observant when it comes to matters of Logan – it's really been a forest vs trees sort of courtship – and that maybe she's not so observant in general.

She tries to look haughty as she picks up her spoon. "Yeah, well, I'm glad you all seem to be friends, because it looks like you're stuck with us."

"And we're playing footsie under the table right now."

"Gross, guys."

"Logan that is my foot."

"I know it is, Piz."

It's incredible how easily Logan meshes with this group of people she loves, how Logan sinks his spoon into the Vermonster for the first bite, and then they're all fighting for the good bits, spoon sparring when one of them sees a piece of brownie, booing when someone gets sorbet by accident.

It's unbearable, almost, how happy she is. She's done nothing to deserve it really. Veronica thinks, while the ice cream starts to melt, that she should really start working at soup kitchens or cleaning up beaches or donating money to the _Panda Bear Relocation Fund_ … Something, _anything_ , so when her heart feels like it's going to burst with so much happiness, she'll know, implicitly, that she's allowed to enjoy it.

They're all sitting low in their chairs when the bucket is finally empty, Piz sacrificing himself for the last bite.

"Who wants to take the bucket home," he asks, not enough energy to even phrase it as a question.

"If I could move I would," Mac offers.

"I think Logan should take it home. For being such a good sport."

There's silence. Veronica opens her eyes. Wallace opens his.

"Logan if you say one fuckin' thing about Veronica being prize enough already, oh my god so help me – "

"Veronica is prize enough already," Logan grins, and then the rest of their friends groan and wad up napkins and throw their spoons at him and he laughs, ducking.

"It was worse before they were officially dating," Mac declares, and Logan slides his arm around Veronica's shoulders.

Veronica grins and curls her hand into Logan's shirt.

She really could not disagree more.


End file.
